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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843427">A Thousand Years</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu'>saunatonttu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gods &amp; Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Mythology, Glenn/Sylvain, M/M, Reincarnation, Trans Character(s), Yuri Leclerc/Sylvain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:08:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>59,522</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24843427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/saunatonttu/pseuds/saunatonttu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Many, many lifetimes ago, a fairy died in the god of winter's arms.</p><p>In the present, Felix has to deal with Dimitri and the enigmatic bullshit that comes with the one-eyed man.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Relationship(s) - Relationship, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>106</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. the edge of dawn</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>ABOUT UPDATING: I'll be busy with moving out stuff in the coming couple of weeks, so I will update this every other week to make sure I have time to write ahead. I have 4 chapters (including this) finished, so that should last for a bit.</p><p>Also yeah, this... is going to be a long one. Buckle up, fellas. Time to slow burn the heck outta Felix. </p><p>Additional notes: some creative liberties taken with plants/flowers. </p><p>Warnings will be added before each chapter, because well. There'll be quite a lot of serious/violent stuff.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Snowdrops broke through the snow, leaves green and petals white as the flower drooped forward, and the sun above the glimmering white field shone warm in the brisk winter morning.</p><p>Winter was reaching its end slowly but surely, though for the time being the snow still crunched beneath the feet that walked on it until they came to a halt in front of the fields of white-petaled flowers. Narrow-eyed gaze swept through the wide, open area, and thin lips curled into a satisfied smile.</p><p>A cold northern wind whistled past the only living presence at the field framed by forests, and gloved hands tugged thick furred coat tighter around the being's frame. The flowers remained unperturbed, and the being – that would have looked like a man were it not for the narrowing ends of ears and ethereal beauty that children of men did not naturally possess – shivered despite himself.</p><p>Heavy footsteps fell into snow, which squeaked and scrunched beneath the weight.</p><p>“Fee,” a deep voice called, and the northern wind settled down at the sound of it. A smile danced along a pale mouth before it parted for more words: “You do so enjoy this spot, don’t you?”</p><p>'Fee' did not turn to face the owner of the voice, and so arms not his own came around him, a nose burying itself into long, untied locks of dark hair.</p><p>“Mitya,” he whispered, and the northern wind picked up again.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>A long, long time ago – beyond written human history – gods and goddesses dwelt on the land of Fódlan, among its peoples. Just as people differed from one another, so did the deities – their powers, their characters, even their very shape. Some ruled over nature, some over feelings and attributes: there was a god for love, a goddess for spring and new beginnings, a god for arts. And they blessed humanity with their gifts as often as they challenged their lives, for deities were not all-good nor all-powerful, and humanity took after them in all their splendor, all their horror.</p><p>But gods and goddesses were not the only ones that lingered among humans even then – for what humanity would call supernatural now was but a norm in those days of old. Fae of many kind wandered the world, free as the wind and graceful as the water than ran through gentle streams in the thick forests of Duscur.</p><p>Fairies and gods got along well, to the point where some clans dedicated themselves fully to a particular deity, or a family of deities. The Fraldari fairies, so the legends say, were one such clan. It is said that the Fraldari king, named Achille, had sworn devotion to the god of war and order in a time that even the fairies forget. And that devotion then extended to the god of war’s only child: the one that would rule over the season of winter and the cold northern winds that brush through Faerghus.</p><p>Achille, too, had a child - two, even, but it is the younger whom we speak of here - and it was only natural that these two children’s lives became entwined with one another, much like two closely growing trees’ roots entangled in nature. They were inseparable: Mitya and Fee, one with hair golden enough to reflect light, the other with hair so dark it almost seemed like darkness itself.</p><p>They grew together, smiled together, did everything together – was it any wonder such childhood friends as them became lovers later in life, despite their differences? Fee had turned distant, aloof, and yet the fairy was ever at Dimitri’s side, and the god of winter would have had it no other way.</p><p>For beings such as them, the concrete forever was entirely possible.</p><p>And yet it was torn from them like leaves tore from trees at autumn’s arrival, as humanity waged war against the fae and the gods whose power they revered and yet feared and hated.</p><p>That war took much from both sides.</p><p>The Fraldari fairies were among the losses – and, eventually, Fee too died, cradled in Mitya’s arms as a horrifying howl tore out of the god’s mouth. The sound of it terrified humans, who ran and ran but could not escape.</p><p>These howls froze the lands around the god and the fairy, and a snowstorm raged through the ancient lands of Faerghus and Sreng.</p><p>It is said that the god lay there in the same spot with Fee for years – and for those years, an everlasting winter tore at the lands, not allowing for a single human to settle down to live there. For his grief was terrible, and so much had been lost in the war with the humans.</p><p>But even that had to end at some point, and Fee was buried in the spot he had died at. Today, that spot harbors lovely snowdrop fields, as though nature itself is commemorating the fairy lost to the senseless violence of the past.</p><p>The god of winter still waits for his beloved’s soul to return to this world once more – for nothing ever disappears for good, not truly.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The very first time Felix saw him was at one of the guest lectures at the main auditorium of University of Fhirdiad. The lecture wasn’t exactly relevant to his major, but as the university was rather lax in the sense that the students could fuck around with courses and lectures as much as they wanted, Felix chose to attend it anyway.</p><p>Besides, it kept him from going back to his and Sylvain’s apartment for a little while, where Felix’s insatiable roommate was sure to be busy with another student. Felix had seen more than enough the last time he had walked in on his supposed friend, and the memory of it made him wish to avoid a repeat of it.</p><p>And the topic of the lecture wasn’t so terribly dull that Felix would prefer going home to Sylvain’s newest relationship mess. He’d rather sit in for a lecture about the use of myths in the popular culture rather than subject himself to listening Sylvain and his newest partner talk in the kitchen while trying to do his homework in his room.</p><p>With that in mind, Felix seated himself as far away from others as he possibly could before setting down his coffee and pulling out his laptop. Evening lectures didn’t normally pull in that many people, and even fewer would sit down at the front – that was why Felix picked a seat near the front, off to the side to avoid being in direct line of eye contact with the lecturer.</p><p>The tactic usually worked, unless Annette caught sight of him and dragged Mercedes with her to sit with him – different programs didn’t mean much when their shared interests tended to overlap and Felix wasn’t capable of denying Annette much of anything despite his best efforts. But he knew Annette had a shift at her part-time job tonight, and Mercedes didn’t usually bother with evening lectures unless she had to, so the only other person that could potentially disturb him was Ashe, who adored the lecture’s topic and mythology in general.</p><p>In fact, Felix was surprised he hadn’t been bombarded with the sound of Ashe’s voice yet.</p><p>So when Felix heard someone shuffling to sit down to a seat near his, he expected it to be the kind-eyed young man that was too cheerful for the darkening autumn season. When he glanced to the side from the corner of his eye, though, Felix saw that his first assumption was wrong.</p><p>Even with one seat between them, the man’s sheer size made it feel as though there wasn’t much distance at all. Felix’s attention went unwittingly to the messy blond hair that had only partially been pulled back into a ponytail to keep the mess from falling completely over the man’s face, which - as Felix noticed with a start - turned towards him. A quiet smile met his gaze and had Felix fumble with himself, though not as much as the sight of an ornated eyepatch over the other half of the man’s face. It wasn’t the eyepatch that made him turn his gaze away in the end, though.</p><p>“Hello,” the man had the gall to speak despite Felix clearly wishing to be left to his own devices. Clearly the brief eye contact had made him think otherwise, and his voice was deep and strangely gentle despite the raspy quality to it. “You’re here for the lecture, as well?”</p><p><em>What else would I be here for,</em> Felix wondered before pursing his lips thin and nodding tersely as he pulled open a new Word document for note-taking.</p><p>“Obviously,” he said, voice flat and disinterested as he lowered the screen brightness to a comfortable level after a full day of straining his eyes. He hoped the other would take the hint and leave him be – most did, at his tone of voice, but not all. That was why he somehow had more companions than just his childhood friend. But this man was apparently more oblivious than Felix had given him credit for, as he continued speaking.</p><p>“You’re interested in mythology, then?” The man’s face scrunched up with something like delight, and Felix’s gaze landed on the nose wrinkling with the expression before noting the brightness of the one visible eye. Felix turned his attention back to the Word document on screen, shrugging at the question.</p><p>“It’s not the worst lecture topic,” he said dismissively. <em>What do you want</em> sat sharp on his tongue, but he held back and hoped the other would finally take the hint. He didn't help his own case by blurting out, “Even though it’s going to be all about the – ugh – love stories instead of the actually meaningful stuff.”</p><p>It was probably for the best Ashe hadn’t found him – if he was even there – since he would be gushing about it and Felix would have to remind himself Ashe didn’t actually deserve the same treatment as Sylvain. Felix could only take so much at once.</p><p>Though he wasn’t sure if having an abnormally talkative stranger beside him was any better – in fact, it might be worse as the man just didn’t seem to catch his drift and leave him be.</p><p>The right corner of his laptop screen declared that there was still about fifteen minutes until the lecture would begin. Why had he arrived so early? Surely there were some scarcely populated areas on campus where he could have waited out until the start.</p><p>But then he would have to deal with the rush of people arriving just at the right time, and that was just as annoying as this situation.</p><p>“Now you have got me curious,” the one-eyed man said, with the same lack of awareness as previously. “What do <em>you</em> consider more meaningful?”</p><p>Felix sighed but turned toward the other to give a proper response to the question. “Anything that’s not about lingering uselessly on tragedy that’s already passed,” he said, jaw clenching as the words left his mouth. “I hate romanticizing bullshit like that.”</p><p>The gaze on him felt too intense, and Felix’s skin itched under it with familiar irritation when the other didn’t offer a response for a moment that stretched on for too long. And so he scowled and huffed, “What? Not satisfied with that answer?”</p><p>“No, it’s not that,” the one-eyed man said, still with a smile that looked too soft to give to a complete stranger. Felix’s skin felt too tight, and he dropped his gaze back to his laptop again, but he couldn’t escape the man’s voice as he continued speaking with that gently amused tone, “I was only thinking your perspective is… unique.”</p><p>“Not really,” Felix said, though no one he knew seemed to share that perspective. The minutes until the lecture’s start trickled by painfully slowly, but at least more people were starting to come into the auditorium now.</p><p>“Unique compared to what I see around, at the very least.” Another chuckle, but for what it was worth, Felix didn’t feel like it was at his expense. Still, something about it unsettled him, and Felix’s gaze stayed firmly on his laptop as the other continued, “Is your distaste directed toward any particular love story, or is it just in general?”</p><p>“They’re all the same tragic bullshit,” Felix said with a shrug. At the front, a woman began tinkering with a computer. Five minutes left. Time couldn’t pass by fast enough, and Felix sighed irritably at the numbers on the laptop screen. “It doesn’t matter which one.”</p><p>Undeterred by Felix’s tone, the man only hummed thoughtfully at his response. If Felix turned to look, he would see the smile pulling at his mouth, barely suppressed from spreading wider on a pale face. Perhaps he would see something soft touching the one visible eye – but as it was, Felix’s gaze remained firmly on his laptop and the hard surface beneath it.</p><p>“As I said,” the man murmured then, “you have such a fascinating perspective. Thank you for sharing it with me.”</p><p>Felix harrumphed, but didn’t say anything – and the other let silence finally fall between them as professor Manuela finished setting the PowerPoint up on the larger screen behind her. For the love of the winter god’s partner, Felix <em>hoped</em> she wasn’t the one giving the lecture or else his sanity might run into a trash can by the end of it.</p><p>Luckily, it wasn’t Manuela – instead, a woman much younger than Manuela tapped at the microphone delicately before introducing herself. Flayn was her name, and she had come all the way from Garreg Mach to Fhirdiad just for the series of lectures on the topic of mythology and its modern representation in popular culture.</p><p>Her puffy hairdo combined with her roundish face might have given her a childish aura, but the first impression soon melted away as she got into the topic, which she seemed fervently passionate about if the shine in her eyes and the upward curve of her mouth was anything to go by.</p><p>After the first ten minutes, Felix decided that he didn’t completely hate it. Her clear voice demanded attention and distracted Felix well enough for him to forget about the presence looming beside him. Even so, he was still somewhat aware of the scribbling sounds, of pencil moving harshly on a notebook page. But over the noise of his own typing and Flayn’s voice, it was barely noticeable.</p><p>“As many of you must know,” Flayn said, gingerly yet with the dignity of a woman much older than her looks suggested, “there are myths that are more popular than others when it comes to… well, when it comes to reapplying them to popular culture, such as films and novels. Can anyone name any such product that is based off on a myth or a legend?”</p><p>Several hands rose up around the auditorium, Felix figured from the satisfied smile on Flayn’s sugary sweet face and the way her eyes wandered before finally landing on someone a few rows above Felix and asked for them to speak up.</p><p>Lo and behold, it was Ashe’s voice that called out: “<em>The Knights, Kings, and a Goddess!”</em></p><p>Felix caught Flayn’s lips pursing into a line at the answer for a brief moment before a pleasant smile returned to her face. “That’s right,” she said. “That one was recently released, wasn’t it? I’m afraid I haven’t been able to see it myself yet. Would you be so kind as to share with us which myths or legends the film depicts?”</p><p>“I’d be happy to!” Ever the earnest person he was, Ashe happily agreed, and Felix sighed inwardly as Ashe began his ramble on the legend of Knights of Seiros and how the film portrayed the story of their rise and eventual fall when Seiros herself was felled by the hands of another goddess.</p><p>Felix didn’t write any of it down, the story familiar enough to him from childhood and Ashe’s ramblings both. Instead, he observed the lecturer and the manner with which she curled a strand of hair around her index finger as well as the stiffness of her smile that reminded Felix too much of his father: distant, pained, always seeming to be on the precipice of recalling something but never quite managing.</p><p>Felix looked away as soon as his mind made the connection, and his lips thinned as he turned his gaze to the side the stranger sat instead. From this side, he could not see the eyepatch. Instead, his eyes met with the man’s profile and the concentrated furrow on his brow as he wrote something down almost too forcefully for the pencil squeezed between fingers.</p><p>Felix’s eyes followed the strong jawline to the pursed lips and to the nose that might once have had a regal appearance but had obviously been broken one too many times in the past.</p><p>A hockey player most likely, Felix thought and ignored the more nonsensical observation of the man’s objectively handsome looks.</p><p>Obviously Felix’s study of the other’s face didn’t go unnoticed, as the man turned to him with an unvoiced question shining in the one visible eye even as his expression shifted and smoothed into a surprisingly bright smile. The sight of it startled Felix with its familiarity, with how much it reminded him of the sun high in the sky on a cold winter day.</p><p>It was absurdly distracting.</p><p>Caught red-handed like this, Felix had no choice but to look away and pretend he hadn’t been staring despite said pretense being useless at this point.</p><p>The man beside him chuckled, the sound audible in the space between them, and Felix’s cheeks burned as though he was back in the awkward, frustrating teen years when making eye contact had been even harder than it was now. Thankfully Ashe’s long-winded explanation had come to a halt, and Flayn picked out another student from the crowd to name another relevant media product for the discussion.</p><p>Unfortunately, it was –</p><p>“<em>Heart of Ice and the Act of Melting It</em>,” someone called out. “It’s a show parodying the myth of the god of winter and his lover!”</p><p>Huh. Well, it wasn’t the <em>worst</em> example, Felix thought, glancing to his side when he heard a choked-off laugh. “What’s so funny?”</p><p>“I have seen an episode or two of that,” the man whispered, his eye crinkling with amusement as he looked at Felix. The plain sweater he wore only brought focus to his features, that smile especially, and Felix found himself chewing at the inside of his cheek at the sight as the other continued, “It is… a rather amusing depiction, despite the inaccuracies.”</p><p>“Haven’t seen it myself,” Felix said with a small shrug of his shoulders, the inconsequential lie easy in his mouth. He’d seen some scenes when he entered Sylvain’s room and caught him chuckling at his television screen but hadn’t stayed to watch the entire thing. He remembered one of the actors, though, and a scene where the man had been so flustered his pale face glowed red and his usually hard red-brown eyes squinted with bemusement while his fingers tugged at the elegant curl of hair that fell neatly to his cheek.</p><p>“<em>Must you torture me so, my beloved?</em>” the actor playing the god had bemoaned, red dark on a face as white as a sheet. Felix had wondered if the vampiric look was intentional, and he still did. <em>“I do not recall such embarrassment since childhood!”</em></p><p>Felix couldn’t say why it had stuck in his mind.</p><p>“You should watch it,” the blue-eyed man with a smile like the winter sun said, and Felix turned his eyes down once again. That smile was difficult to look at, and not for the reasons Felix’s obnoxious roommate would assume. “I think you might find yourself amused if you give it a chance.”</p><p>Though, Felix discovered as he stared at the keys of his laptop, even he didn’t know the reason for why it was so hard to look at that face. That was the disturbing part of it, and so Felix willed himself to keep his gaze from wandering for the remaining hour of the lecture.</p><p>But that did not mean the man on the other side of the empty seat between them was obligated to do the same. The touch of his gaze was much too real on Felix’s skin, and his jaw clenched until he thought it might break each time that eye strayed to him, looking, <em>studying</em>, as discreet as a pig in any situation.</p><p>Doubtlessly, he didn't mean to make Felix uncomfortable. Not many people got so prickly just from an occasional glance in their direction.</p><p>Thankfully, the gazes did not linger forever – Flayn’s voice recaptured the man’s attention, both his eye and ears’ – and Felix’s shoulders sunk out of momentary relief as he went back to typing down the core concepts scattered into Flayn’s rambling speech filled with confusing fish metaphors. An occasional love story rose up, but just as many times Flayn discussed the myths that showed up more rarely in modern Fódlan.</p><p>The Creation, as well-known as it was, did not make for an intriguing entertainment spectacle.</p><p>“Which is a pity,” Flayn murmured to herself, though the microphone carried her voice across the auditorium. Her posture remained prim but her tone became as distant as the sky where the gods dwelt. “I would much rather witness that on screen or page than the dull repetition of war mankind seems so fond of. Perhaps that is why the goddess of spring is still so popular among the people.”</p><p>Flayn cleared her throat to cover up the cracks that had begun to form in her voice, and her smile returned fully with her next words. “I think that is enough for today! Thank you ever so much for coming to listen to me – and thank you for all the fascinating remarks made today! I am looking forward to the next time already.”</p><p>Felix took his time shutting his laptop and tucking it into his bag while the rest of the auditorium filled with the noises of students making their escape from the stuffiness of the closed space. One glance at the front, and he saw Manuela and Flayn speaking with one another. They weren’t far enough for Felix to not hear the empty pleasantries they exchanged, and so Felix focused on pulling his jacket on and zipping up his bag to ignore them and the other noises around the emptying room.</p><p>Yet, when he straightened himself and slipped the bag’s strap over his shoulder, he wasn’t alone. The man that had sat almost beside him through the lecture still lingered, watching him with what Felix thought was wary expectation, a kind of a puppyish look that looked misplaced on a man his size.</p><p>“What?” Felix asked, though it came off gruffly. “I’m not standing in your way.”</p><p>“Oh, I know,” he said, smiling awkwardly as he fiddled with the sleeve of his unzipped jacket. “I was just… ah, allow me to introduce myself? I’m Dimitri.”</p><p>He extended his hand out as he was still speaking, a hint of eagerness showing through his stiff expression, and Felix let his narrow-eyed gaze fall to it. Old leather gloves already covered them, and Felix squinted minutely before taking hold of the offered hand with his own and muttering, “Felix.”</p><p>“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Felix,” Dimitri said, his voice soft and facial expression even more so. As though Felix was doing something other than acquiescing to politeness – as though that something endeared Felix to Dimitri.</p><p>“Likewise,” Felix forced the words out, even though <em>pleasure</em> wasn’t the word choice he’d use.</p><p>Confusing, perhaps.</p><p>Weird, definitely, as something about Dimitri put Felix on the edge, tense and ready to lash out if the other gave a reason to.</p><p>Felix was better at ignoring people than this. But it had been a long day at university: an early 8.30 am lecture had started it, and the only break longer than half an hour had been the two hours for lunch around midday. He was tired. His back ached from sitting around in class all day. He had had to take off his binder hours ago in a bathroom. And Dimitri didn’t make the exhausting day any less so.</p><p>Still, Felix didn’t protest when Dimitri joined him and walked with him to the bus stop outside the university’s main building. Light rain came down, as was typical of early Wyvern Moon, but they made their way under the canopy quickly and so the umbrella Felix had armed himself with that morning remained inside the bag’s side pocket.</p><p>“Are you going to the other lectures?” Dimitri asked after a while, over the chatter of the other people waiting for their buses and as Felix was digging through his pockets for his earbuds and phone. “From what I saw, they’re going to go into more detail on specific myths in the following weeks.”</p><p>Felix hummed dismissively as his fingers caught the cord of his earbuds and pulled them out of his pocket. “Maybe a few if I feel like it. If my roommate’s being an incorrigible fool.”</p><p>As he often was. But Felix kept that to himself this time.</p><p>He didn’t need to look at Dimitri to know that he was smiling – it was obvious from his voice, which was warm despite the Wyvern Moon chill. “Perhaps it’s shameless of me to say, but in that case I hope your roommate is an incorrigible fool for weeks to come.”</p><p>Felix never got the chance to respond when Dimitri already continued, the previous confidence suddenly deflating as he stumbled over his words: “That is to say… I, er… I’m being too forward, aren’t I? It’s just that I found your perspective interesting, and…”</p><p>By the Goddess Sothis, this man…</p><p>“Just,” Felix breathed out, warmth flaring up across his face, “shut up.”</p><p>Dimitri did, and his eye stayed from peering at him. Slowly, Felix exhaled, fingers numbly fiddling with the earbuds but never lifting them to his ears. Over the sound of traffic and drizzle, his shuddering breath went unheard.</p><p>He wished his bus would arrive soon. He needed to get away from this man, put some distance between them and regain his mental balance.</p><p>To rid himself of the strange feeling of déjà vu that he only now recognized as such.</p><p>Five more minutes rolled by in the relative silence of the early but already darkening Fhirdiad evening before a bus whose sign shone with the number <em>20</em> arrived at the stop. For a moment, as he fished the bus card out of his pocket, Felix wondered if Dimitri was taking it too. But as he glanced behind him, he saw Dimitri remaining under the canopy, hands shoved into the pockets of his still unzipped jacket and an unreadable smile on his face.</p><p>Like that, meters away from the few other people at the stop, he looked lonely.</p><p>Felix turned away from the sight and climbed into the warmth of the bus, sweeping his card against the reader. A familiar bleep followed, and the doors closed behind him.</p><p>And with that, Dimitri was swept from his mind as though he had never existed.</p><p>(Or that was what Felix would like to say.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. to reach for your hand</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Meeting Dimitri wasn't just a one-time thing.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>What waited for Felix the following morning after brushing his teeth and having a light breakfast was a message from Sylvain, accompanied with too many animated emojis and stickers that made Felix sigh and roll his eyes. <em>Stayed at her place</em>, the message said, with far too many winking emojis. <em>Will be back after classes today, promise.</em></p><p>The small digits beside the message declared that Sylvain sent it at 4 am, just barely two hours before Felix had awoken.</p><p>Felix suppressed a sigh before pulling Spotify open and returning to his room to change into his jogging clothes just as the clocks turned 7.03. Temperature outside neared zero – typical of Wyvern Moon, though perhaps not this early into the month – so Felix took a jacket with him this time before tying his hair up and venturing outside just some moments later.</p><p>Soon he was already jogging down his usual route, unbothered by the damp autumn air even as it tickled at the skin of his face and hands.</p><p>About two kilometers into it, and just as Felix turned to a forest path, he felt the first touch of something cold and wet against his nose.</p><p>Ten minutes later, visibly white snowflakes descended down from the sky, falling between the trees and onto them and their few remaining leaves. In the silent morning, only the steady beat of Felix’s feet hitting the well-trodden path and his breathing echoed over the distant sounds of an occasionally passing car.</p><p>Somewhere, songbirds that had yet to migrate south to Adrestia and onward were singing, only to be interrupted by a crow’s inelegant cawing. A twig crunched beneath Felix’s foot. Familiar forest sounds that Felix had grown up surrounded by before his father had decided to move to Fhirdiad, away from the Fraldarius land.</p><p>He had hated the city from the moment he stepped his feet into it, and Glenn had laughed at him all the while stroking his hair comfortingly whenever homesickness for the forests of their lands hit. To ten-year-old Felix, Fhirdiad had been a city made of asphalt and rock, of industrial and judicial buildings that loomed over the too many people treading the streets.</p><p>22-year-old Felix knew better than to take the city at face value. The center was what it was, a façade of industrial success and government functionality, but nature lingered present in parks and in the wild forests scattered around the outskirts where rent was cheap and costly amusements scarce. This particular forest path had served him as his morning exercise for better part of two years now, and while it didn’t quite compare to the forests of his childhood, Felix was content with the routine, with the sound of his feet against the soil and trodden plants and the feeling of his heart pounding as adrenaline rushed in his veins.</p><p>Now, in early Wyvern Moon morning, snow fell around him and continued to do so even after he turned around to make the trip back to his and Sylvain’s shared student apartment.</p><p>It was too early for snow even by Faerghus’ standards, yet the white dust didn’t show any sign of stopping its gentle, dancing descent.</p><p>Felix couldn’t say he minded. The sooner the damp autumn weather gave way to crisp winter, the better.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>After returning to the apartment Felix still had time for a quick scalding hot shower that washed away both the sweat and the chill before he had to grab his bag and leave again, this time to jump on a bus to the university campus. Finally, he replied to Sylvain’s message with an emoji of his own (indifferent, unamused, whichever worked), sighing to himself when he pocketed the phone and turned up the volume as Spotify switched to another song.</p><p>He continued ignoring the text from his father, sent two days previously.</p><p>This routine continued on for a couple days longer before Felix finally texted <em>I’ll be back for the break week</em> and left it at that. There was a time and place for politeness, but it was not with the old man that looked more miserable with each year that passed, no matter what Felix said or did to make him pull himself together.</p><p>Perhaps some would find forgiveness and empathy for him, but Felix could not.</p><p>He had always been great at holding onto grudges.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The next time he met Dimitri wasn’t in a lecture hall – rather, it was by pure coincidence right after the rush hour at the main cafeteria. It had been almost a week since their encounter at the lecture Felix hadn’t originally intended to attend but which Sylvain’s rare forewarning about his company had driven him to participate in.</p><p>Dimitri didn’t appear much different from how Felix remembered him – though, as Sothis only knew, Felix had shoved the thought of him as far back into the depths of his subconscious as he possibly could – what with the smile bordering more on goofy than endearing side as he asked, “Would you mind if I joined you?”</p><p>“Doesn’t seem like my answer really matters,” Felix said, eyes on the backpack Dimitri had already dumped on the seat across from Felix’s.</p><p>Dimitri’s lips pursed and his movements halted midway as uncertainty took over. Felix didn’t really get where the sudden hesitancy came from. “I don’t mean to be pushy.”</p><p>“Whatever,” Felix said, shrugging his shoulders as he dropped his eyes to his still full plate. “Go get your lunch.”</p><p>Dimitri’s baritone melted into a lighter tone when he said, “I’ll be right back, Felix.”</p><p>The way he said his name circled through Felix’s mind as he was left alone once more. It didn’t sound entirely natural, and Felix would have blamed it on the awkwardness of only recently becoming acquainted if it hadn’t been for the warm tone that accompanied the name.</p><p>Felix wasn’t by any means an easy person to warm up to, especially that fast. Not that one particularly needed to be a nice person for a hook-up, Felix supposed, if that was what Dimitri was after. The thought of it soured Felix’s mood. Not that it would be the first time someone looked at him and decided a pretty face was worth pursuing despite the prickly thorns that was his personality.</p><p>Like a petulant child, Felix stabbed a stray piece of carrot on his place with his fork. Still, the other feeling hadn’t gone away, either: the strange tugging in his subconsciousness that said Dimitri looked <em>familiar</em>. And yet, Felix couldn’t place the man in his memories despite being able to recall such things as the first time he had eaten a peach, seated on his mother’s legs while her hand stroked his tousled hair – despite being able to recall details most others would have forgotten about as easily as they forgot their homework.</p><p>He brought the carrot into his mouth, ate it, and ignored the noise around the cafeteria, both the low chatter and the clanking of plates and utensils alike. Sometimes Felix would eat with Sylvain, but more often than not Felix ate alone and not always at the cafeteria.</p><p>Dimitri rejoined him a few minutes later with a tray full of haphazardly picked food and two glasses of milk. A bank card along with a student ID rested beside the plate, but Dimitri pocketed them as soon as he had settled down on his seat and put the backpack down.</p><p>Now, Dimitri sitting across the table gave Felix the chance to observe him, though much less discreetly than in the lecture hall. Dimitri flashed him a friendly grin, a little stiff around the edges, and it was sincere enough to be different from Sylvain’s.</p><p>Someone might call it charming.</p><p>Felix was, unfortunately, friends with people that would.</p><p>“Early snow this year,” Dimitri commented, and it was just as awkward as his attempts at conversation before had been. Felix turned to glance at the wide window behind him and saw that the snowflakes had grown bigger, fluffier, and into something that would stick into his hair later if the snowfall didn’t stop. Turning back, Felix caught the wistful smile Dimitri’s expression had morphed into.</p><p>The familiarity of the sight struck him, made his heart skip a beat, and for a moment Felix found himself at a loss before he managed a curt, “So it is.”</p><p>The conversation nearly ended with that, which Felix would have preferred, but Dimitri was not so easily deterred from his attempts at having one. “Do you enjoy winter, Felix?”</p><p>Felix’s fork stabbed into a piece of meat this time. Vicious, like Felix was often described. “I don’t hate it,” he said. “Better snow than the mud that gets everywhere.”</p><p>Somehow, that got Dimitri to smile wider, and a glimpse of white teeth showed between his lips. Between his front teeth was a noticeable gap. Felix only noticed because his nerves were strung tight, jittery as though his body was about to jolt away. The feeling of déjà vu swam through his mind again.</p><p>“I love wintertime,” Dimitri said, his fingers idly playing with a spoon as his expression melted into something softer. “Faerghus winters may be cold, but I enjoy them all the same. The nature becomes so very picturesque.”</p><p>“The nature is <em>dead</em> in winter, you know.” It wasn’t, not truly, but Felix rather wished Dimitri stopped talking so that the strange feeling would fade with the deep baritone.</p><p>“Some of it,” Dimitri agreed. “But it’s also peaceful, don’t you think?”</p><p>Felix thought about the snow drooping off of the branches of pine trees and resting on top of rocks and cliffs in his family’s land. The white fog that was his breath in the crisp winter morning. The feeling of being home, and at peace, that Felix hadn’t truly experienced since childhood.</p><p>“It’s less noisy,” Felix acknowledged, and maybe from him that was just close enough to an actual agreement. Dimitri certainly seemed to take it as one, if his lopsided grin was anything to go by. Felix’s chest constricted until he dropped his gaze again, lips thin and legs restless beneath the table.</p><p>He knew he wasn’t good with people, but it hadn’t been this bad in a while.</p><p>“Right,” Dimitri said, though now his voice sounded concerned. Pitying, Felix would have thought if he had still been seventeen and a bitter high schooler. Not that he was much better now. “Is something the matter?”</p><p>“No,” Felix said, with an annoyed <em>hmph</em> following close behind. His fingers itched to pull out his earbuds and phone. Instead, they stayed around his utensils as he brought more food to his lips, first muttering, “Not all of us are so eager for empty conversation.”</p><p>Dimitri’s spoon clanked against the side of his plate, but he himself remained silent.</p><p>For a while, time passed just like that: Felix eating, and Dimitri doing something vague with his spoon while occasionally sipping milk. Felix’s eyes lifted from his plate, as the simple meal of potatoes, meat, and vegetables wasn’t <em>that</em> interesting to look at in the long run.</p><p>What he found was Dimitri staring at him with an unreadable expression on his face.</p><p>“Stop that,” Felix said, a scowl tugging his brows and lips down. “You do that way too much.”</p><p>Dimitri blinked, his expression shifting into something else entirely then. “Ah… excuse me. Was I staring?”</p><p><em>Fucking obviously</em>, Felix thought, and it must have shown on his face as Dimitri’s expression twisted once more, this time into a sincere-looking apology. “My apolo—"</p><p>Felix scoffed. “I’m not going to sleep with you no matter how hard you look at me.”</p><p>The spoon fell from Dimitri’s grasp with a loud clink as it hit the plate, even splashing some stew in its wake. The chatter around them didn’t quiet at that, not that Felix paid much attention to that when Dimitri’s face adopted a mortified look that Felix might have laughed at if he wasn’t busy scowling.</p><p>Even so, he still managed a snort. “You didn’t think I noticed, did you?”</p><p>“I – that is not – that was <em>not</em> my intention, Felix, I assure you –”</p><p>Quite frankly, seeing Dimitri struggle with his words in the manner of a flustered teen rather amused Felix, and so his mouth curled up into a twisted little smile despite himself. “Really? I don’t see any other reason you would keep pushing yourself into my company if you didn’t.”</p><p>It wasn’t as though Felix had the personality that attracted people. Sylvain was only around because he was the same and they’d been friends since childhood. Mercedes, Annette, and Ashe… well, Felix considered them the odd exceptions to the rule.</p><p>And Ingrid was… Ingrid. Not as close a friend as Sylvain obviously, although Felix found himself more tolerant of her than he ever expected. The real surprise was how Sylvain had befriended her to begin with, but Felix had yet to receive a real answer on that mystery.</p><p>Asides from them, however, Felix didn’t imagine terribly many people would look past his face and find his personality prettier. He wasn’t in the habit of fooling himself.</p><p>“Felix,” Dimitri said, his expression shifting into something else once more. As though Felix’s words offended him, though Felix didn’t see why they would. “You are far more interesting than you give yourself credit for.”</p><p>“This is the second time we meet,” Felix said flatly. “Second time we converse.” If it could even be called that.</p><p>“And I would like to keep speaking with you,” Dimitri said, exasperation mixing with something that could only be sadness. His expression stiffened, became more withdrawn and clouded, and Felix hated the sight of it. “I apologize if I… gave the impression of having ulterior motives.”</p><p>“Hmph.” Sincerity shone on Dimitri’s face and eye, and as skeptical as Felix was, he couldn’t find it in himself to believe it to be falsehood. Felix sighed before resuming eating. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter. Just as long as we’re clear on that.”</p><p>The rest of the lunch went by in relative peace, and this time the silence wasn’t so awkward now that Dimitri wasn’t staring at him and making faces Felix couldn’t read through. But Felix still wasn’t rid of the feeling that he had met Dimitri before, a long time ago, and that sense of familiarity continued irritating him long into the afternoon, hours past the lunch.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Still, Dimitri had to suggest exchanging phone numbers before Felix had finished with his meal.</p><p>“Not for of the reason you – suggested before,” Dimitri said, voice just a little strained and his gaze not quite meeting Felix’s face. “But because I’d like to get to know you better… if you allowed me the chance.”</p><p>It was frighteningly easy to imagine Dimitri making an exaggerated bow to him in the aftermath of the suggestion, and Felix couldn’t quite rid himself of the thought as he sighed and listed his number off to Dimitri one digit at a time. and watched Dimitri type it clumsily onto the screen of the brick of a phone he had.</p><p>“I didn’t even know phones that old were being sold anymore,” Felix said as Dimitri saved his contact information with noticeable effort.</p><p>“Oh, I do not think they are,” Dimitri said, distractedly as he continued fiddling with his phone, his movements deliberate and slow. “A friend of mine gave it to me as a gift. Should I send you a message so you can save my number too?”</p><p>“Sure.” If only because Felix got the feeling Dimitri didn’t remember his own number, and something in him didn’t actually want to be rid of this strange, awkward man. Not that Felix would admit that much out loud – he barely comprehended the inane feeling, speaking of it would be far too much.</p><p>Two minutes later, his phone buzzed, and Felix opened the message.</p><p><em>Hello, Felix. : ), </em>it said.</p><p>“Got it,” Felix said as he saved the number under a new contact, which he named <em>Nuisance</em>. On the contact list, it went right above <em>Old man</em> while Sylvain’s contact, aptly named <em>Asshole</em>, remained at the top.</p><p>Finishing up didn’t take too long after that. Dimitri didn’t try to keep up nonsensical small talk, though the slight smile on his face didn’t go away despite his obvious lack of interest in his food that he kept tossing around on his plate.</p><p>Even despite his height and the eyepatch that was only partially covered by blond bangs, he wasn’t very threatening when he looked like that. Strangely, Felix thought, it reminded him of a golden retriever.</p><p>As a cat person, it didn’t endear him. But it wasn’t the worst comparison to make.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Past lunchtime, nothing truly spectacular occurred: the afternoon classes went on as usual despite Felix’s mind wandering back to Dimitri, the strange déjà vu feeling back all fresh and insitent. Another text message from his father made his phone buzz right after Felix’s last lecture finished. Felix took one glance at it, decided it could wait, and shoved the phone back into his jacket’s pocket.</p><p>He hadn’t decided whether he was actually going to visit the man for the break week that was coming up. He didn’t particularly want to, but life had never been about the things he wanted. Still, he had promised already, rather thoughtlessly.</p><p>Back home, he only watered the out-of-season snowdrops at the kitchen windowsill before getting to his assignments for one sweet hour before Sylvain returned and had to ruin it, as usual.</p><p>Felix was used to all of this, asides from the Dimitri part of his day.</p><p>“Did something nice happen today?” Sylvain asked over a slice of pizza, eyes mischievous and curious like every fox’s in bedtime stories. “You’re less rude than usual.”</p><p>“I <em>was</em> enjoying my free time from your company. Now you’ve ruined it,” Felix grouched before taking a large bite from his own slice.</p><p>“There’s the Felix I know and love.” As usual, Sylvain just shrugged it off, shoulders shaking with laugh that Felix knew was mostly false.</p><p>And so Felix kicked Sylvain’s shin beneath the table for good measure, but it only made Sylvain laugh louder.</p><p>Twenty-somethings, and yet they were both such children.</p><p>Felix didn’t really hate it.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Felix dreamed often. Always had. In the recent years, that had made him despair and grow into the habit of waking up either at five or six in the morning depending on the season. There were the nightmares, of course: of his dead brother, of his just as dead mother, of the old man leaving him behind and never looking back. They were hardly pleasant dreams – hence the title <em>nightmare</em>.</p><p>Felix wasn’t the type to scream himself awake, thankfully. No one knew of them. Sylvain might, but he wasn’t around enough to bother Felix about it.</p><p>Asides from nightmares, though, other kinds of dreams also pestered Felix, and they bothered him more than the actual bad ones since he couldn’t make much sense of them. They always included himself and another person – sometimes more – but Felix could never tell who the other was and where they were, only that it was blindingly white around them.</p><p>It had been a while since he last had a dream like that.</p><p>So, <em>naturally</em> he would have one that night, long after he had settled into his bed on his side, arms folded around himself and hair free from its usual constraints.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>As was typical, the world around him remained white, devoid of any other color save for the dark green of the pine trees standing at the edge of Felix’s vision. Snow lay beneath Felix’s shoes and a cold northern wind breezed past him, but Felix’s gaze remained somewhere else entirely.</p><p>His eyes stuck to the wide back of a man standing at a distance that he wasn’t pleased by – and so his legs moved before he even knew it, toward the back covered beneath a blue, fur-lined cape, and a mop of blond hair that would be soft to the touch of Felix’s fingers.</p><p>How he knew this did not matter; reaching that back did, and so Felix walked through the thick blanket of snow that covered whatever soil there was.</p><p>When he got closer, Felix finally huffed, “Stop making me waste my time by looking for you.”</p><p>A chuckle rumbled through the freezing air, and the man glanced over his shoulder with a pair of sparkling blue eyes that narrowed pleasantly at the sight of Felix. Even his blond hair seemed to shine brighter now, but still lost to the glimmer of his smile. “But, my love,” the man said, tired but fond, “you have such a knack for finding me. It usually doesn’t take you long.”</p><p>Felix’s cheeks puffed out ever so slightly, even as the other’s gloved fingers brushed against one. “It doesn’t mean I like doing it.”</p><p>“Ah,” the blue-eyed man hummed. “I understand. You, too… feel ill at ease when we are separated.”</p><p>“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Felix said, scowling and blushing fiercely, “Mitya.”</p><p>‘Mitya’ chuckled, no longer than a couple seconds, but the sound of it lit warmth back in Felix’s chest. He had been more anxious than he had thought if that had such an effect on him. “Very well,” Mitya said, as his other hand slipped something behind Felix’s ear. “I won’t speak of it anymore, then.”</p><p>Felix’s hand reached out to whatever it was behind his ear, and his fingers met with the soft touch of a flower’s petals, soft and cold from the swirling winter breeze.</p><p>Snowdrop, unless Mitya had more skill with gardening than Felix thought.</p><p>(“I don’t <em>know</em> who he is,” a part of him cried out, but that part disappeared into the whispers of wind.)</p><p>Mitya’s eyes crinkled, and in the white scenery there really wasn’t anything else Felix could have paid attention to. “Thank you for finding me, Fee.”</p><p>“What are you say—"</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Felix woke up, as suddenly and quietly as always, in the darkness of his bedroom. Outside his door, he heard someone’s staggering footsteps. Turning to his side and picking up his phone from the nightstand, Felix saw that it was barely five thirty. Not as early as he had thought – Sylvain’s night had lasted unusually long, then.</p><p><em>1 new message</em>, his phone screen announced as Felix squinted at it. <em>From Nuisance.</em></p><p>Sent barely fifteen minutes before Felix’s dream chased him out of it. Who the fuck liked to send messages at five in the damn morning?</p><p>Dimitri, apparently. Still, Felix opened the message on screen.</p><p><em>Good morning</em>, it said, and Felix’s mind conjured up the memory of Dimitri’s smiling face from the previous day. The sense of familiarity from before returned full-force, an eerie déjà vu making Felix push himself up into a proper sitting position on his bed as he eyed through the rest of the short morning message.</p><p><em>Are you coming to the lecture tonight?</em> <em>Yours truly, Dimitri</em>, the message finished, and Felix contemplated for too long whether the flush on his face was secondhand embarrassment at how Dimitri typed text messages like letters or the chills from leaving his window open overnight.</p><p><em>Get some fucking sleep,</em> Felix texted back, like a hypocrite. <em>See you later.</em></p><p>In the confined darkness of his room, Felix smiled just the slightest bit as he got up and began preparing for the new day while his roommate (apartment-sharing leech as Felix called him to his face) was still finishing his.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter on the 19th! After that I'll probably switch to weekly update schedule.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. old friends</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dimitri is fucking weird, but he's not the only one.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dimitri was fucking strange, and while the first impression of him might suggest something like that, the new tidbits Felix learned about him only convinced him further of this. Him treating Felix like an old friend despite only a few meetings was one thing. Snapping pencils cleanly in half whenever startled was another. Him not having a smartphone in this day and age despite appearing being close to Felix’s age also puzzled him.</p><p>There were other things, of course. The eyepatch was one, though even Felix wasn’t so stupid as to inquire about the injury that was probably a result from a traumatic accident. Felix had enough to deal with trying to forget the one that had taken Glenn away, he didn’t need to ponder after another.</p><p>Then there was the fact that Dimitri sent good morning texts at <em>five in the morning</em> as though it was a perfectly normal time to do so.</p><p>“Oh,” Dimitri had said when Felix confronted him about, blinking like a baffled owl. “I cannot sleep very well these days, so I often find myself awake at that time. And you wake up early, too, so I thought—"</p><p>Felix certainly didn’t remember sharing his daily routine with Dimitri.</p><p>When he said so, Dimitri’s face first turned pallid before reddening again.</p><p>“I suppose you seem the morning type of person,” he said simply, and changed topic before Felix could tell him literally no one had ever accused him of being a morning person, even though it would be an accurate statement.</p><p>One other thing these interactions made clear was that Dimitri was as subtle as an elephant stomping around a porcelain store. He wore honesty like a medal and tripped over himself when it came to concealing matters from Felix’s eyes. Felix would be amused if he wasn’t busy being confused to hell and back by him.</p><p>(He’d be sure Dimitri was stalking him if Dimitri wasn’t so genuinely clueless about most things Felix did. He had been so delighted to hear Felix used to practice judo. Not to mention his joy at Felix giving him his number. So he probably wasn’t a stalker… just a big fucking weirdo.)</p><p>Lastly… and somehow this mystified Felix the most… Ingrid knew him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Felix had only met Ingrid on his first university year through Sylvain. When Felix asked if she was his current partner, Ingrid had smacked Sylvain’s chest.</p><p>“Only in his dreams,” she said firmly, and Felix immediately decided he liked her based on both that interaction and the exasperated pout curling on Sylvain’s face.</p><p>From there, she had become a close acquaintance (read: the second closest friend Felix had in his life, only losing to Sylvain because of time and the amount of bullshit she had yet to witness from him). They went to the gym together. Sylvain occasionally joined. She had as little patience for Sylvain’s dilly-dallying as Felix, whose new favorite memory was Ingrid shoulder throwing Sylvain into submission.</p><p>In hindsight, it was remarkable how seamlessly Ingrid fit into the group, her banter with Sylvain and Felix both an ingredient that felt like it should always have been there. Those kinds of relationships didn’t just <em>happen</em> to Felix, so he was all the more thankful for it – silently, of course, because voicing such sentiments wasn’t like him. Felix himself doubted if he were physically capable of such.</p><p>A lot had died when Felix had been an ignorant fifteen-year-old.</p><p>It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Ingrid had friends of her own outside Sylvain and him – Felix couldn’t be <em>that</em> arrogant – but still his brow furrowed with confusion when he stumbled upon Ingrid and Dimitri by the side of the auditorium door on his way toward his next class.</p><p>They didn’t notice him as they were deep in their conversation, of which Felix caught some as he approached the pair curiously. Some words drowned over the chatter of other people, but mostly Felix caught the words exchanged.</p><p>“—have told me, Ingrid,” Dimitri said, voice strained with emotion. “I would have liked to know.”</p><p>Ingrid’s voice sounded terse but even as she replied, “How could I, when you only recently had started feeling better? Dislike my decision all you want, but I made it thinking of you.”</p><p>“It is unlike you to be so presumptuous.” Dimitri sounded almost <em>angry</em> now, a strange emotion to associate with the man Felix had only seen either smiling or flustering like a complete fool. From behind, Felix could only see the tension of Dimitri’s shoulders, and it became more obvious with each other. “I would not break down so easily now—”</p><p>“Dimitri,” Ingrid said, the name uttered with such tired worry that it couldn’t come from anyone else than an age-old friend. Felix caught sight of her face as he approached, the wrinkle between her brows obvious as her gaze flicked away from Dimitri and toward him. “What’s done is done. I am sorry, but I – Felix?”</p><p>Dimitri’s shoulders, if possible, tensed further for the barest hint of a moment before drooping as he glanced over his shoulder. The smile curling along his mouth was terse but genuine nevertheless, and the lines around his eye softened. “Felix. Hello.”</p><p>Felix caught the exasperated look Ingrid shot Dimitri, who in turn did not seem to notice it.</p><p>“Don’t mind me,” Felix said, lifting an eyebrow at both of them as he halted his steps. A lot of students passed by in their own friend groups while chattering away, and perhaps that was why the two had chosen to have an obviously tense argument right there. To drown out the sound of their agitation from anyone listening in. It hadn’t worked, though. “You two seemed to be in the middle of something.”</p><p>“Oh,” Dimitri said, and Ingrid folded her arms over her chest as she looked away and said along with Dimitri, “It was nothing.”</p><p>The look on Dimitri’s face – that clenched jaw, that tension around his eyes – revealed the lie as clearly as a vocal confession, but frankly Felix didn’t care to delve into someone else’s relationship problems right then. Something else was on his mind. “I had no idea you two knew each other.”</p><p>Ingrid smiled then, an awkward and tight little expression that made her look more severe than usual. The bright snow-enhanced light that trickled in from the floor-to-ceiling windows only made the creases of her face more apparent. “Childhood friends,” she said, voice softer than her expression. “We grew up together.”</p><p>Felix raised his eyebrow even higher this time and remarked, “That’s the first I’m hearing about any childhood friend of yours.”</p><p>“I hadn’t been in Fhirdiad for a few years,” Dimitri interjected softly. “It is no wonder Ingrid hasn’t mentioned me. I was in Enbarr before I came back home this autumn.”</p><p>Imagining Dimitri in Enbarr during summer was a strange effort because Felix’s stupid mind only conjured up the idea of Dimitri sweating like a pig through the excruciatingly hot months that washed over the southern Adrestia like a tidal wave. Felix’s throat dried. What stupidity.  </p><p>“Enbarr, huh?” Felix hummed, drumming his fingers against the bag strap pressing into his shoulder. The clock on the wall showed he still had fifteen minutes left. “Kind of hard to imagine you in that climate.”</p><p>“That is what I said to him too,” Ingrid sighed, but a more genuine smile tugged at her face then. “He has never been good with heat unless it’s sauna.”</p><p>“I have learned my lesson,” Dimitri acknowledged with a raise of his hands signaling mock surrender. “I won’t be returning there anytime soon. At least not for summer.”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Felix said as he glanced at the clock again and turned to leave. “If you’re done fighting, I’m going to head off to my class, then.”</p><p>Before he could take a second step, Dimitri’s hand had reached out, awkwardly bumping against Felix’s arm in a vague attempt at halting him.</p><p>“Lunch?” he asked, an edge of hopefulness in his voice. Felix didn’t need to turn to him to know the expression brightening his face. It must be the same look he had given when he had requested that they change numbers – pleading, ridiculous look that gave his face a youthful shine.</p><p>As if Felix’s company was that important to him.</p><p>The thought nearly made him scoff.</p><p>“Sure, after class,” Felix mumbled as he shrugged Dimitri’s hand away and left the two behind. They didn’t pick their previous conversation up from where they had left off, at least not until Felix was well out of hearing range.</p><p>Later, he went to eat lunch with Dimitri, and Ingrid joined.</p><p>Somehow, Felix found that the table with the three of them felt emptier than when it had been just him and Dimitri.</p><p>Just like the other off-balance feelings, Felix squashed it into the far ends of his mind, somewhere between the boxes of issues his mind had gathered and packed full over the years.</p><p>Dimitri was a new addition in his life, probably nothing more than a fleeting acquaintance: the strangeness must be the result of the novelty of someone taking an interest in him without secondhand introductions and friend-of-a-friend deals. Possibly even without the intention of seduction, but that remained to be seen.</p><p>That was how Felix chose to look at it, even though Dimitri didn’t stop being any less of a weirdo.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Snow continued to fall without any intent on melting away as the Wyvern Moon progressed onward, and soon Fhirdiad was blanketed in white and every adult with a house began sighing about the unfair amount of snow they now had to combat. Felix’s father asked him again whether he was coming home for the break. Felix typed back <em>yeah, I already said I would</em>. And: <em>take your damn meds.</em> Sylvain began staying overnight at their apartment more often, which only increased the chance of a migraine.</p><p>Felix learned many new little facts about Dimitri along the way, too. He now knew Dimitri majored in history, many of his courses relating to Fódlan’s history in particular, and that was why Dimitri attended the guest lecture series where they had met initially. He was technically a second-year student after spending a year at the esteemed University of Enbarr, but Dimitri was rather tight-lipped on the details, his eyes glazing over when Felix questioned further.</p><p>“It was… different,” Dimitri only said before his lips twitched into a smile. “I’d rather focus on the present.”</p><p>Felix took the hint.</p><p>Other details Felix discovered quickly were Dimitri’s fondness for animals, especially dogs but cats had their own appeal.</p><p>“Lynxes,” Dimitri said, with an odd wistful tone. “I used to see them around often when I was younger.”</p><p>Even odder, Felix could imagine Dimitri stroking a wild lynx’s fur perfectly fine. Perhaps because even animals couldn’t possibly resist Dimitri’s sincere attitude and smile. Perhaps because Felix couldn’t imagine anything even instinctively loathing this odd man with an eyepatch and hair that was either combed tidily or not combed at all – there never was anything in-between.</p><p>Pretty often, Felix and Dimitri spent the lunch time together and that was when most of their conversations occurred. They texted, too: each morning, Dimitri sent a good morning message just before Felix would wake up, which was to say <em>ridiculously early</em>. Felix couldn’t say he minded it, but he also couldn’t help but give Dimitri shit for what he perceived as the other failing to care for himself properly.</p><p>“<em>Normal</em> people sleep seven or eight hours,” Felix grouched while Dimitri fought off a smile.</p><p>“How do you know I don’t?”</p><p>“You text me <em>good night</em> every night after midnight, you idiot.”</p><p>“You always reply, too.” Dimitri’s mouth always quirked higher at this, some odd pleasure at Felix seemingly indulging his silliness.</p><p>“Well, that’s – ugh, shut <em>up</em>.”</p><p>Without really noticing it, Felix had made fast friends with Dimitri, and it wasn’t until Sylvain pointed it out that Felix himself realized that Dimitri was indeed a <em>friend</em> already.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>It happened on a relatively normal Wednesday night after Felix had dragged himself home. He had only just about gotten his feet off his shoes and the jacket off from his shoulders when Sylvain was already there, shoving his phone into Felix’s hands and smiling innocently when Felix glared up at him.</p><p>“Sylvain, seriously, go buy a new fucking charger,” he said even as he curled his fingers around the cursed device, whose screen lit up with the icon of the charge bar as Felix pressed his thumb over it.</p><p>“Why?” his stupid roommate asked with a deceptively innocent face, ginger eyebrows raised high. “I’ve got you, haven’t I, Felix?”</p><p>Sometimes Felix wondered if Sylvain stood him and his personality because he was <em>convenient</em>. The thought was stupid, Sylvain was his childhood friend and they were both fucked up twentysomethings and thus needed each other the way drowning men needed a lifesaver, but at times the doubt crawled in.</p><p>That moment, though, Felix only felt annoyance and a temptation to toss Sylvain’s easily breakable iPhone down.  “Not for long if you keep this up. Just because I haven’t accidentally fried your phone yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen, Sylvain.”</p><p>Still glaring down at the phone, Felix saw the sparks of electricity that flickered over his hand, the sensation tickling instead of harmful. If he concentrated enough, he probably <em>would</em> be able to ruin Sylvain’s phone for good.</p><p>Felix moved to their kitchen table without doing that, though, and dropped his bag on the floor before pulling out his own phone, whose screen announced the arrival of a new message from Dimitri. The creases between Felix’s brow eased as he clicked it open.</p><p><em>Hello, Felix. </em>Again with the formalities better suited for a letter. Felix’s mouth threatened to twitch up into a smile at the absurdity of it. <em>I apologize for not making it for lunch today. I had wished to see you today, but dentist appointments hardly respect my wishes. How are you?</em></p><p>Sylvain leaned to peek over his shoulder, unbothered even by the elbow Felix shoved into his side. “Huh. You’ve made a new friend, have you?”</p><p>“Just an acquaintance,” Felix said reflexively. “Stop reading over my shoulder.”</p><p>“A funny guy, by the looks of it,” Sylvain said, not heeding Felix’s words as usual. Among his many other bad habits, it wasn’t the worst but still one of the most annoying. “He’s got that right about dentists, though. I’ve still got my wisdom teeth removal coming up.”</p><p>Felix glanced at the other phone in his hand. 40 percent already. He’d wait until 50 before shoving it back into Sylvain’s hands.</p><p>“Anyway, Felix,” Sylvain continued, now an ominously teasing edge to his voice as he set a hand on Felix’s shoulder and squeezed. “That’s the guy you’ve been texting a lot lately, yeah? I’m so proud to see you making new friends, buddy.”</p><p>“He’s not—”</p><p>He didn’t need to see Sylvain’s face to know the exact expression glued to it as Sylvain continued, “You never text to anyone but Annette, Ingrid, and myself. And your old man, I guess. And definitely not as often as you’ve been doing with this Dimitri guy.”</p><p>Felix was just about to retort something mean and sharp, but – Sylvain had a point, a surprisingly accurate point.</p><p>Not that he was going to admit that. “He’s… persistent,” he said instead as he thought about the sincere glint in Dimitri’s one visible eye. The eyepatch. “Difficult to ignore.”</p><p>Sylvain laughed, the sound not as fake as usual. “Listen, I’ve heard you say that about <em>me</em> for years,” he said. “If that’s not friendship, I don’t know what is.”</p><p>Fuck it.</p><p>Felix threw the damn iPhone over his shoulder, where it hit Sylvain straight in the nose. Nevertheless, after scrambling hurriedly to catch the phone, Sylvain’s laugh only grew louder for the next moments until he went to order pizza for the two of them.</p><p><em>Friend, huh,</em> Felix thought as he glanced at the drooping snowdrops on the windowsill. He supposed it wasn’t the worst thing imaginable, calling Dimitri that.</p><p>If only the weird feelings Felix’s chest was prone to experiencing around him would go away.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A few exams and final assignments for courses that wouldn’t continue past Wyvern Moon filled Felix’s days before the break week near the end of the month.  There weren’t many, as most courses extended until the end of the semester, but it was enough to drag Felix to the university library for a few hours every other day for both research and studying that he wouldn’t get done in Sylvain’s company.</p><p>Lunches with Dimitri were pushed aside, for both of their work’s sake, which in turn meant Dimitri was particularly annoying whenever he texted. <em>You’re taking care of yourself, right?</em> he asked, and Felix had half the mind to just not respond whenever Dimitri got that way.</p><p><em>Worry about yourself, mister History Major</em>, Felix ended up texting back. The concern was useless when this was Felix’s third year at university already, and nearly all the possible breakdowns had already happened in the first two.</p><p>(Bachelor’s thesis might change that. Felix already felt his head ache, despite having the topic for it and all.)</p><p>He still found the time to hit the gym with Ingrid for kickboxing sessions. Even Sylvain joined, looking worse for wear from his all-nighters spent on his growing pile of projects he hadn’t started earlier. If anyone needed to be scolded into taking care of themselves, it would be Sylvain – but he rarely listened, and nowadays Felix only had so much energy to spare.</p><p>The days were busy, and so time passed by entirely too fast until Friday came and classes finished for Felix’s faculty for the coming week. Some others would have their off-week later, and some would have off-days from some courses but not from others, depending on the variety of subjects each took.</p><p>As stressful as exam time was, Felix rather wished it had lasted longer.</p><p>Because now he had to face the idea of going back home for the week – and it made him reluctant, prickly, but he had already said he would go and he knew perfectly well the kind of sigh his father would make if Felix called and said he had changed his mind. He had heard plenty of it in the past, more than enough for a lifetime, and Felix would subject himself to torture that was his father’s Fhirdiad home if he never had to hear it again.</p><p>He just hadn’t had to do it alone in a while.</p><p>“Sorry, Felix,” Sylvain said that Friday night in the middle of folding clothes into a suitcase, the door to his room wide open and Felix standing at the entrance. “Daddy dearest called me up and said I gotta attend this dinner with him and his business associates next week, and he wants me home earlier so they can tailor me a new suit.”</p><p>The bitterness leaked into his voice like car battery acid, and Felix pursed his lips. Another reason he and Sylvain had stuck together for so long: shitty father relations.</p><p>Instead of offering condolences, Felix muttered, “Guess you can’t mess another one of those up with your uncanny fashion sense, huh.”</p><p>Sylvain snorted and winked as he looked over his shoulder, pausing his packing and folding. “Don’t underestimate my talents, buddy.” Then, his smile faded, his eyes focusing on Felix’s face. “What about you?”</p><p>Felix’s jaw clenched. “What about me?”</p><p>“You okay with going to see your dad by yourself?” Sylvain’s voice held none of its previous tone, only vague concern mixed with something else. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”</p><p>Felix’s gaze slid away, and a prickling feeling of electricity tickled at his fingertips as was normal whenever Felix’s feelings threatened to approach their limits. “I’m not so weak that I’d crumble the moment you can’t stick to my side, Sylvain.”</p><p>And they left it at that. For all his idiocy and the remarks that had led to Felix marking him as <em>Asshole</em> on his phone’s contact list, his friend knew when to back off. Sometimes.</p><p>Sylvain didn’t leave until early in the morning the next day, but already Felix knew he was going to miss his insufferable company. If nothing else, Sylvain’s personality had the tendency to push Felix’s mind off his own issues.</p><p>The old man had the very opposite effect, and so Felix put off going there until late Saturday afternoon, when the sky was already beginning to darken but which the downwards wafting snow illuminated. Last year, Felix made the same trip with Sylvain in pouring rain with barely functional umbrellas. Weather-wise this was much better, Felix thought as he gazed out of the bus window at the snow piling around the edges of the streets.</p><p>The old man lived pretty much on the other side of the city compared to the student apartment Felix shared with Sylvain, so Felix had to change buses twice before getting to the stop closest his intended destination. When he finally got off from the last bus, snow no longer fell from the skies. Still, Felix drew up the hood of his jacket and walked on.</p><p>Western Fhirdiad, where the old man had moved after his wife’s death and taking Glenn and Felix with him, was bare from trees and the landscape as city-like as it could get in Faerghus. At times, Felix suspected that was why they had moved there to begin with – it was completely different from the Fraldarius lands in east, and Rodrigue Fraldarius was nothing if not a cowardly fool.</p><p>Felix’s first impressions of the city had been from there, and he had spent years hating the suburbs for the amount of people living there and the too thin walls between each attached house. Glenn had been much more tolerant of the change in their environment, but he had always had more of a life than Felix.</p><p>Felix’s throat still choked at the thought of him, and so he very decisively pushed his brother off his mind as he turned to the familiar street lined with terraced houses. The only nature around were singular trees and lawns, and snow had covered them up plenty by now. Felix dug into his pockets for the key as the grimace on his face deepened with each step he took.</p><p>The third door from the beginning of the street – Felix walked up to it and shoved the key in much too viciously before unlocking and opening the door as though it was made of poison. He shouldn’t have come. He should have told his father to fuck off and leave him be if he wasn’t going to try harder at playing his role.</p><p>He closed the door behind him with an ominous click, shoving they keys back into his pocket as he kicked off his shoes.</p><p>“I’m home,” he called out of habit that refused to die. No one answered him. He hadn’t expected otherwise, and so he went to drop his bag in his bedroom that hadn’t changed at all since his last visit several months ago. He didn’t linger there, instead went to look for the old man. He worked long days, but on Saturdays he usually came home early unless he had changed his routine for some reason. Not that doctors could afford a routine.</p><p>Felix found him in the small living room, in the end. The old man lay asleep on the sofa, an arm pressed over his eyes, no part of him twitching when Felix huffed and went to check the contents on the glass of the coffee table set between the sofa and the television at the other end of the room.</p><p>The glass was half-full of translucent liquid, and Felix grimaced as he carefully dipped his finger in and brought it back up to his lips.</p><p>No particular taste, no tingling or burning on his tongue.</p><p>Just water, then.</p><p>Felix hated how his shoulders slumped in relief. He glanced at the man on the sofa again. Beneath the arm, he could catch sight of dark eyebags, a sure sign his father had been losing sleep for either work or his own wallowing again.</p><p>Watching it was even harder now than it had been when he still lived under the same roof, and so Felix tore his gaze away and slipped into the kitchen where he pulled out his phone and called to the usual Almyran place he ordered take-out from during his stays with his father.</p><p>“Make it extra spicy,” he ended the call with out of spite. The old man had never dealt well with food spiced with more than minimal amount of salt and pepper, after all.</p><p>Felix’s skin felt stretched thin in this house, the need to be elsewhere strong and prickly.</p><p>Why had he come? He didn’t know anymore.</p><p>Fifteen minutes later, Rodrigue stirred and dragged himself up to the kitchen from the age-worn sofa, looking even worse than he had the last time Felix saw him months ago in summer. Wavy hair in disarray, the blueish gray of his eyes as desolate and unseeing as ever, the man didn’t look much like an esteemed doctor.</p><p>Felix’s lips curled in distaste, and he looked down at his phone screen yet again.</p><p>“Felix,” his father said, almost painfully, surprise barely evident as a dim undertone in his voice. “You came.”</p><p>“I said I would.” Felix pursed his lips tighter. “<em>I</em> don’t take back my word.”</p><p>There had once been a time when that would have made Rodrigue knit his brows together in disapproval at Felix’s tone. Now, though, it only made Rodrigue’s eyes shut as a sigh escaped him without any words to accompany the soft sound.</p><p>Ten minutes later, the takeout arrived. Rodrigue didn’t comment on the spiciness, and Felix didn’t look up to study the ever-growing bags beneath eyes that had been lined with exhaustion for as long as Felix could remember.</p><p>He hadn’t expected things to be different, and yet he was still disappointed.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The dreams had been more vivid back at the Fraldarius family house in the old (rumored to be) fairy lands, but that didn’t mean Felix had ever been free of them in Fhirdiad.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The thick scent of pine hovered in the air as four tiny feet beat against the forest floor and broke through the calmness of morning. Laughter rang as clear as flutes as a boy’s foot bumped against the root of an old oak tree, and the humor came from the boy stumbling haphazardly on one foot for a few hops as the other tried pulling him onward.</p><p>“Mitya,” the boy leading snorted, the sound loud in the morning forest, “hurry up already!”</p><p>Sunlight caught onto wheat-colored hair, and a flash of white teeth came with a smile. “Wait up, Fee,” he laughed, voice brighter than the sun-dappled scenery around them. Something like light scolding emerged into his tone next: “I’m not as fast as you!”</p><p>Fee stuck his tongue out. “Consider this training, then.”</p><p>The nature around the two children seemed to come to life the deeper into the forest they ran, confident in their abilities in the way only happy children could possibly be and their confidence further bolstered by each other’s company, their connected hands.</p><p>Fee’s smile was so wide it hurt his cheeks, and the glimmering, translucent wings on his back fluttered with his joy.</p><p>(He did not see it, but Mitya’s eyes bore into those glimmering wings, wide with awe.)</p><p>The forest had always been like Fee’s backyard, and so it was him leading them through the maze of trees until they reached a clearing where deer often grazed about and wildflowers grew haphazardly. The season was not right for Fee’s tastes yet, but summer would arrive soon.</p><p>And with it would come all the fae festivals he wished to show his friend.</p><p>Wings sprinkled with a touch of gold and blue fluttered, glowing in brilliant shades as Fee took off from the ground. Gravity had never bound him, and Mitya’s awestruck and surprised gasp spread a smile across his face.</p><p>But he didn’t fly off so high that he had to let go of his friend’s hand.</p><p>Silly god was too heavy to be lifted off ground, so this would have to do for the time being. He had no complaints, not when a big smile spread across the young god’s face like sunrise broke through the horizon each morning.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Felix woke up with a start, his eyelashes wet with emotion he could not place. It would take a long while before he could sleep again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter is more details on Felix's backstory! Can't say whether I publish it next week or the one after that; depends on how much I've written ahead next week.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. our family mess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Fraldarius family has been in pieces since a long time ago.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Chapter warnings: character death (you know whose), implied suicidal thoughts, chronic illnesses and felix's rough attitude</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>By the time he woke up, Rodrigue had already left for work, and so the apartment was largely empty and silent as Felix made himself some breakfast from what little the refrigerator had to offer. Mostly it was leftovers of takeout food. After he finished, he threw the boxes into the trash.</p><p>With the old man at work, Felix could begin to go through their bedrooms properly. Rodrigue always locked his door, but he didn’t hide the key particularly well. Felix only had to go get it from the kitchen where it lay against a page of the calendar.</p><p>It hadn’t been turned since Verdant Rain. Felix sighed irritably and flipped the calendar page to Wyvern. His father’s birthday was coming up. Unfortunately, it aligned with Felix’s break weeks more often than not, and Felix hadn’t really given the man any worthwhile presents in the past years. His father hadn’t seemed to notice: he had been happy with a rare and warm non-takeout meal Felix struggled with for foolishly long.</p><p>Felix took the key and went to unlock the old man’s room. He certainly didn’t know Felix did this whenever he visited, but it was his own damn fault for leaving the key in a spot Felix could easily snatch it from.</p><p>Felix bit down the pang of guilt that stabbed his throat and entered his father’s room unceremoniously.</p><p>The curtains had been drawn over the window, so Felix had to turn on the lights to see properly. Wasn’t much of an ordeal, as he needed only to snap his fingers. The stuttering light had Felix squinting and rubbing at his eyes until they no longer hurt at the sudden brightness. His fingers still tingled with the aftersensations of electricity.</p><p>The room was… not as messy as Felix had expected, to be honest. His father worked long days at the hospital, and he had little energy at home, so cleaning was often done in little spontaneous bursts of action that were never enough for the entire apartment. But it seemed as though he had worked up the energy for his bedroom recently, as there was no dust even in the corners of the room, and the few pieces of clothing hung neatly over the back of a chair.</p><p>The bed was a mess, however. Untidy and unmade, sheets wrinkled as though the old man had rolled around violently in his sleep.</p><p>The thought tugged something at the corner of Felix’s memory, but the feeling disappeared as soon as it came. His attention drifted to the nightstand beside the bed. On it were three items. A bottle of whiskey and a book with a carmine red cover caught Felix’s attention first.</p><p>Beside the bottle was a shot glass, and Felix wrinkled his nose at it. Supposedly – if he were to give his father the benefit of the doubt – it was for better sleep.</p><p>The bottle was two thirds full still, so Felix let it be, though a part of him was tempted to toss its contents down the drain in the kitchen sink.</p><p>Instead he picked up the book. On its cover, a strip of paper was taped and onto it something had been scribbled with near unintelligible handwriting.</p><p>Felix, used to his father’s overly artistic writing, managed to read it just fine. <em>For Felix, </em>it said. <em>20th of Pegasus Moon. </em>The year scribbled beside it was the current one.</p><p>Felix felt as though he had been punched. His father never failed to give him a gift for his birthday, though they often missed the mark, but it was <em>months </em>too early. More than likely, it had been an impulse buy, something that Rodrigue had thought might appeal to Felix (but probably wouldn’t).</p><p>Felix sat down on the edge of his father’s bed as he opened the book. The title page proudly proclaimed it as <em>A Collection of Faerghan Fairy Tales</em> <em>and Legends</em>, and Felix scowled at it. If the old man had thought he’d be impressed by the gift, he had been wrong.</p><p>The list of contents was impressively long, though.</p><p>The winter god’s tales took up a large portion of the book, but they weren’t the only ones. Some stories were of fairies and elves, some even of vampires, which Felix snorted at. Vampires in a book of fairy tales? Seemed absurd to him, but he wasn’t the editor of the book so whatever.</p><p>The book’s author was simply marked as <em>Seteth</em>. With no last name.</p><p>Felix began reading.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>To simplify matters, I am offering the reader this table of gods and their relations. Similar table is given for notable fairy clans, but not all of them. Likewise, the families of high elves are listed. Vampires and other barely appearing creatures will not be given such lists, as their presence in these tales and fables is minimal. (In the case of vampires, though, they too are remarked to have complex family trees that are also their own topic of research.) One should also note the marked presence of Adrestian gods/goddesses; Adrestia and Faerghus tales are interconnected, but often carry different viewpoints. This book entails the Faerghan side of mythology. Therefore, only the relevant Adrestian deities are included here. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>NOTE: Gods are given many names depending on location. Their titles here are what they are most commonly known for: however, one should note that each deity has a fair share of titles collected under their name. Goddess Sothis, for one, is known most commonly as The Beginning and Mother, but she is also a deity of faith and fire. (Latter, as the reader may be aware, was attached to her during the witch burnings several centuries ago.)</em>
</p><p>
  <em>NOTE 2: Gods/goddesses took many human lovers. Not all these unions birthed children, and not all children borne of these relationships became (demi)gods. The unions listed in these tables were ones that produced such children. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>Just get on with it, </em>Felix thought. There was no need to state the obvious, was there?</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Fódlan’s Pantheon of Gods and Goddesses </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Progenitor God Sothis</em>
  </strong>
  <em> – Mother, The Beginning. Plenty of children, but as a whole, the important ones are as follows: Cichol, Indech, Macuil, Seiros. Saint Cethleann is said to hail from this family, as well.</em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Seiros </em>
  </strong>
  <em>– also known by the name of Rhea in Adrestia. A warrior goddess who stood for peace and order, though Adrestian tales of her paint her in a different picture. No children are attributed to her, though artwork often depicts a minor demigod Sitri as resembling Seiros greatly. Adrestian stories often focus on her downfall at the hands of the goddess of spring. </em>
</p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Cichol</em>
  </strong>
  <em> – a god of discipline and the art of writing. Seiros’ older brother and said to be the doting father of the young woman that was later known as Saint Cethleann. He tends to be portrayed as though he is a so-called helicopter father.</em>
</p><p><strong><em>Indech</em></strong><em> and <strong>Macuil</strong></em> <em>are rarely mentioned in Faerghan legends, and what they stood for remains unclear even in the few stories that exist of them. Macuil stayed away from human affairs, for most part. Indech, however, occasionally gifted mortals that bested his wits with gifts, such as magical weapons or “good luck” in battle. </em></p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Saint Cethleann</em>
  </strong>
  <em> is said to have been the daughter of Cichol, though as history books know, she is a well-documented individual from the times of great turmoil in Fódlan. Many stories of her exist, though for this publication’s purposes, the more mystical ones will be discussed later on. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>The descriptions of the most important gods to all of Fódlan stood separate from the table of Faerghan pantheon, and Felix skimmed it over for most part. They were things he knew well enough from half-heartedly listening to whatever religious nonsense program his father had on at any given time.</p><p>Felix’s eyes flicked to the family tree of Faerghus-specific gods. Under the family tree, each name was listed, followed by a brief description just as on the brief introduction to the general Fódlan pantheon.</p><p>Why he was still reading this, Felix could not say. He didn’t have anything better to do, he told himself. Cleaning wasn’t exactly his favorite hobby. The old man wouldn’t be coming back until late evening either.</p><p>Above this family tree of deities, an emboldened name stood out: <em>Blaiddyd</em>, the cursive letters declared. It was said that Faerghus’ now long-extinct royal family had been descendants of gods, hence the name the deities lent them. Pure bullshit, of course. Humanity in general was much too proud of the perceived “fact” that gods had created them after their image. The ones that claimed divine blood were even worse. History classes had been a great irritant for sixteen-year-old Felix.</p><p>Felix always wondered just how shitty the gods must have been if they really created humanity after themselves. Sometimes he voiced this to get a rise out of his religious father, but the man hadn’t ever really taken the bait. At most he had pursed his lips at Felix and worn a long-suffering face that radiated <em>what have I done to deserve this</em> energy.</p><p>Ever since Glenn’s death –</p><p>No, his father had been pathetic long before Glenn died. Had Glenn stayed alive, nothing would have gone differently.</p><p>Felix brushed that train of thought off and studied the page before him. <em>Blaiddyd</em>, it still proclaimed as it started to list off the different deities belonging to that particular family of gods and goddesses.</p><p><strong><em>Egitte</em></strong>, the text said, <em>is alternatively known as the god of order and god of war. The latter description is especially prevalent in the northern Adrestian and Srengi tales of him. In Faerghus, however, he is adhered to as the upholder of peace and order, though many stories also depict a mischievous side to him. And just as many stories speak of his stormy romances with the goddess of fate and the human woman named Patricia. However, every story also notes he fathered only one child, who grew up to be the god of winter.</em></p><p>
  <strong>
    <em>Moira</em>
  </strong>
  <em>’s love affair with the god of order is one of the lesser studied romances of Faerghan mythology, but the goddess herself is one of the better-known ones. Destiny and fate are under her influence, and so many lovesick people adhered and prayed for her. Her stories detail many mortal romances that she saw to fruition. The darker stories reveal her vindictive side, and people had more fear for her than they did for her husband. </em>
</p><p><strong><em>Mitya </em></strong>– <em>alternatively Mityushka – is a term of endearment for Egitte and Moira’s son, who rules over winter and its nature. Faerghan legends focus heavily on him, especially on his love story with a fairy whose name is lost to these stories. He is often described very handsome: tall and blond with eyes like ice. Popular media borrows many things from these legends; however, these depictions err on the side of toxic hypermasculinity and are often criticized for that.</em></p><p>The winter god’s description went on a bit longer, because apparently the author thought people needed a lengthy description of him to go <em>oh right that’s who all these shitty movies and series are based on</em>. Felix snorted and closed the book after that, an unsettling feeling crawling down his spine.</p><p>There was <em>something</em> about that description of the god that tugged at his mind.</p><p><em>Dimitri, </em>he thought. But that was stupid. Blue-eyed blonds weren’t that rare. They weren’t as common as Adrestians online thought, but blue-eyed blonds blended in just as well as anyone else.</p><p>Felix scoffed at himself and put the book away. Reading always made him think too hard about nonsense, which was why he rarely did it outside class. So why had the old man gone out of his way to buy a thick anthology of myths for him?</p><p>He had better get back to cleaning. Next was Glenn’s old room.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Fraldariuses used to be a full family: a father, a mother, two sons (though one hadn’t been treated as a son for a large part of his childhood). For a few years, they had been a happy one, too.</p><p>That didn’t mean they didn’t have issues: the father had a tendency for chronic migraines, and Felix faintly remembered one summer when the man had been shut in a hospital room through the abnormal heat wave that hit Faerghus maybe once every twenty years. Back then they had lived in the old Fraldarius estate, far from Fhirdiad and medical care.</p><p>Glenn and Felix had seen their father perhaps twice that entire season. Their mother had been stressed, taking care of the house with the help of Felix and Glenn’s paternal uncle. Felix remembered the feeling of moss between his toes as he ran barefooted after Glenn, but not much else of happiness from those long weeks.</p><p>No, that wasn’t true. There were the peaches. Imported from Leicester and brought from a supermarket in the nearest town, they were overripe and overly sweet. Back then, Felix had liked them, eating them as he sat on his mother’s lap, with his mother’s hands gently braiding his hair.</p><p>But was it a happy memory?</p><p>Felix couldn’t say, honestly. Thinking about things that his mother did thinking her son was a daughter instead still discomforted Felix if he reminisced too much.</p><p>She died a year before Felix could tell her he was a boy – and from there, things began to go further downhill.</p><p>They moved out of the estate to Fhirdiad for the rest of elementary and middle school years, and their father started working at one of the city’s hospitals. It meant long hours, and the household chores fell into Glenn and Felix’s hands.</p><p>People started calling Felix by his name. Glenn started high school. Glenn got his first boyfriend, although that only lasted for two weeks. Felix did too. Lasted two days, because that was how long it took Felix to realize that the guy was a moron.</p><p>And then Glenn died. And so the downhill their family had been riding split open into a ravine. ¨</p><p>They had an argument, he and Glenn. They often did – what siblings didn’t? Felix would like to meet them and call them liars – but this one had been <em>bad</em>. Gut-punching level of bad.</p><p>Felix no longer quite remembered what it had been about, but he remembered the salty taste of tears on his tongue when he had spat out: <em>I really hate you when you’re like this, Glenn.</em></p><p>The moped ride to Felix’s judo practice had been as awkward as Sylvain’s attempts at flirting with older girls, but again, it was something Felix only vaguely remembered.</p><p>The accident itself was a blank darkness in Felix’s head. No matter how he tried to remember it, he couldn’t. Doctors – his father included – said it wasn’t uncommon in case of head trauma, but… Felix hated it, even so.</p><p>(He owed it to himself to remember, if not to Glenn. But these were the kind of silly sentiments he would never voice out loud. Not with a sentimental fool like his father around.)</p><p>The impact from the drunk driver that had decided to go all <em>screw traffic rules</em> killed Glenn immediately, Felix learned later from listening in on the police officer and his father’s conversation.  Felix had nearly cracked his crutches as he listened to both the droning voice of the officer and the subdued acceptance from his father.</p><p>He had cried a lot during his stay at the hospital. His leg was broken and he had gotten severe bruises and skin abrasion from the accident – not to mention the concussion – but he was <em>alive</em> and hated staying locked inside in a room where he could do nothing but think and cry some more.</p><p><em>It should have been me, </em>he would think late at night as he pretended to sleep when a nurse came around to check on him. <em>It should have been me. </em>He would fall asleep with the salt of tears on his lips.</p><p>People who said cruel things to their family always paid the price. In the movies, at least; but life wasn’t like that. The shitty younger brother lived while the foul-mouthed but kind older brother died.</p><p>The drive home from the hospital had been even worse, though. It couldn’t have taken too long – rush hour had long since dissolved by then – but in Felix’s memories it stretched on and on into an undetermined amount of time.</p><p>An undetermined amount of time spent watching his father’s knuckles tensing and whitening on the steering wheel while silence ruled between them.</p><p>In the following weeks, Felix learned that, after rock bottom, it was possible to sink even lower. His father didn’t take time off from work, which meant that after school Felix was mostly alone in the apartment suddenly too large for two. Sylvain came over whenever after he transferred to Fhirdiad’s boarding school – being the intrusive guy he was – but otherwise Felix led a pathetic social life.</p><p>Nothing like a brother’s death to <em>really</em> drive in the fact that he was a loner.</p><p>If Felix didn’t know better, he would almost say Glenn died on purpose to prove a point. But thinking about it that way only made Felix angrier and more miserable, so he buried the thought deep, deep inside himself.</p><p>He was thirteen, almost fourteen, at the time. Glenn was close to turning eighteen and getting his driver’s license.</p><p>A decade passed, and very few things changed. The old man avoided touching Glenn’s stuff, no matter how ridiculous it was to preserve any of it, and Felix still fought him but never went through with any of the threats he made to his father.</p><p>He wasn’t any better than the fool, really. Their shared blood must carry a curse of sorts.</p><p>Felix didn’t know why he bothered with his father anymore. It wasn’t as though the old man had gotten any of his shit together for Felix’s sake over the years, anyway.</p><p><em>Glenn is in a better place now, Felix, </em>he had told him as they stood before Glenn’s gravestone in the cold, desolate graveyard at the outskirts of Fhirdiad. Felix remembered the exact tone the old man had said it in and especially remembered the sound of his palm hitting his father’s cheek.</p><p>The look the old man had given Felix then –</p><p>Felix really, <em>really</em> hated coming home.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Glenn’s room was the same as ever, every piece of furniture unmoved and embraced by a thin layer of dust. Felix wasn’t surprised, and yet a disappointed sigh escaped him as he entered the room with a vacuum cleaner and a stiff pair of pursed lips.</p><p>Ghost ships and haunted houses were well-known attractions, but who’d have thought a single room could be just as chilling and a cause for so much irrationality. Felix might not believe in the supernatural, but he wasn’t immune to the fear the concept brought.</p><p>He wasn’t immune to emotion in general, as much as he wished he were the impenetrable, unfeeling son of a gun he acted.</p><p>Still, he clenched his jaw and took a breath before plugging the vacuum cleaner in. The corners were the dustiest, as usual.</p><p>Five minutes into it, Felix’s eyes landed on Glenn’s messily made bed. The old man hadn’t changed the sheets even once, but he kept the bed almost clean even during Felix’s absence.</p><p>Beside the two flattened-out pillows lay several fox plushies. Some lay on their backs, some on their sides, some on their faces, and it created an incoherent mess atop an already incoherent mess that was Glenn’s bed.</p><p>Looking at it was weird. Glenn had always been the tidiest of them, nearly on par with Sylvain’s obsession.</p><p>He had been especially careful with his fox plushies, even if he hugged them to sleep like a damn child.</p><p>(Felix did not have plushies of his own. Sylvain lied and modified photographs.)</p><p>Felix sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up one of the stuffed toys. It was one of the bigger ones – that was a little smaller than a house cat – and its fake fur was soft under Felix’s fingers as he stroked the little creature’s back.</p><p> What nonsense. What he was doing was irrational nonsense.</p><p>But Glenn had loved those plushies and seeing them around always made the persistent lump in Felix’s throat swell until he could no longer breathe.</p><p>At least he didn’t cry.   </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>By the time Felix finished cleaning, it was a little past noon and more than high time for lunch. He changed out of his binder and into a clean shirt and considered going to the local supermarket to fill the refrigerator with proper food, but one glance outside showed that the snowfall had picked up again.</p><p>Ugh, takeout again, then. Felix picked up his phone from where he had left it to charge, and frowned when he saw he had a few messages waiting for him.</p><p>Sylvain was too busy with his father’s bullshit to text, and Ingrid was off hiking for the week.  The only possibility was—</p><p><em>Dork,</em> the screen declared proudly, and Felix sighed but nevertheless opened the messages filled with the cheeriest of emojis and most stilted text speak Felix had ever seen.</p><p><em>Good morning, Felix!</em> the first one started, followed by a bright smiling emoji. <em>I hope your off week has started off well. I have a paper to write for one of my medieval Fódlan classes. How are you doing?</em></p><p>That was sent… 5.30 am. Felix stared at the timestamp with raised eyebrows. It wasn’t the first time, but he had to wonder if Dimitri actually slept at all or if he woke up even earlier than Felix did.</p><p>The other one had arrived when Felix had still been vacuuming Glenn’s room.</p><p><em>Felix, </em>it started, <em>is everything well with you? I don’t mean to intrude, but you usually answer pretty quickly…</em> The message ended with a frowning emoji, and it made Felix’s lips twitch at the sheer hilarity of how sincere Dimitri’s use of it was.</p><p>The message ended with: <em>If you are unavailable or don’t wish to speak to me right now or this week, I will not disturb you further. I only wished to check on you. Have a good day, Felix. </em>And another smiling emoji. Felix couldn’t help the full smile that spread across his lips at that, but he quickly suppressed it once he noticed.</p><p>Leaving Dimitri without a reply should have been easy. Felix had done that to Sylvain and his father both a great number of times before.</p><p><em>Though</em>, Felix supposed as he began typing a response that probably was just gibberish to someone that didn’t seem to understand text speak, <em>Dimitri is a different case</em>.</p><p>Ugh.</p><p>He shouldn’t be falling for the bare minimum signs of friendliness from someone else. Especially not when Dimitri’s endgame goal with all this remained unclear.</p><p>And yet, two hours later, he was still hungry and on a call with the man whose contact name had gone from calling him a nuisance to simply calling him <em>Dork</em>. Felix wasn’t softening up to this new-made acquaintance, no, no matter what Sylvain had said and what Felix had inwardly admitted to himself previously. Keeping his tongue and mind sharp all the time was just… tiring. Difficult to maintain. Like actual swords and their edges were.</p><p>Dimitri sounded happy to be talking to him: his baritone voice practically vibrated with excitement from the moment he picked up the call from Felix.</p><p>That was… new.</p><p>Maybe Sylvain had been right and maybe Felix had somehow gotten a new friend, loathe as he was to give Sylvain such credit.</p><p>But Felix knew better than to settle and get comfortable.</p><p>People were traitorous creatures, and Dimitri was just one predator among the many others.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>By five in the afternoon, Dimitri had come over with groceries like Felix had asked him to about an hour previously as his phone’s shitty battery had been threatening to die on him after a three- or four-hour call. Felix had given him the address and the bus lines that operated near his neighborhood, but still Dimitri nearly walked right past Felix’s home.  </p><p>He would have if Felix hadn’t cursed and opened a window to call out to him. “Where the <em>fuck </em>do you think you’re going?”</p><p>Dimitri, with two plastic bags in each hand, blinked – or that was what Felix <em>thought</em> he did, it was difficult to tell – before laughing sheepishly. “My apologies, Felix! I must have mistaken the apartment number…”</p><p>“Just get in already.”</p><p>Once inside, they unpacked the four – fucking <em>four</em> – plastic bags. Felix’s eyebrows knit together as he looked at all the extra things Dimitri had bought. Two loaves of hard rye bread? <em>Really?</em> “The old man’s going to be feasting for a month after I leave here again.”</p><p>“Does your father not eat well?” Dimitri asked, brows furrowing as he continued unloading the bags’ contents for Felix. “I didn’t buy so much as to last a month…”</p><p>“He’s a doctor,” Felix said, taking the cartons of lactose-free milk and shoving them into the fridge.</p><p>When he didn’t continue talking, Dimitri asked, looking and sounding pretty baffled, “Do… doctors not eat? Or is your father a sun-resistant vampire?” Then, more astonished, Dimitri mumbled, “I was under the impression they do not procreate.”</p><p>Felix snorted out loud at that. “He would be infinitely cooler if he were, but no.”</p><p>The microwavable food went into the fridge next. At least a bag’s worth of it. Dimitri had splurged on premade food a considerable amount of money, it seemed. Felix would have been more indignant if it hadn’t been a smart move. His father hadn’t made a proper meal in many moons.</p><p>“He works long days at the hospital,” Felix explained with as much indifference as he could muster. “Hardly takes time off. When he <em>is</em> home, he’s asleep or bedridden anyway because of a migraine or something.”</p><p>Chronic illness was hardly the man’s fault, but Felix thought it pathetic anyway that a simple migraine felled a man for days at a time. Or, in the case of that one summer, for <em>weeks</em>.</p><p>(Someone – with Sylvain’s voice and face – could note Felix had never had a migraine in his entire life. That someone could also shut the hell up.)</p><p>Dimitri fumbled then, grasping at nothing with his hands when Felix turned to look. Dimitri pursed his lips before saying quite softly, “It sounds like he’s having quite a difficult time.”</p><p>“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Felix told Dimitri as they finished with the plastic bags. Felix tucked three of them into the last one and put them away into a cleaning closet. Dimitri followed him with his eye, and Felix scowled as he continued, “He’s had time to get his shit together. It’s no use waiting for someone that refuses to get better.”</p><p>Dimitri’s expression fell, almost as if a curtain had been pulled over his visible eye. “I see.”</p><p>Felix narrowed his eyes at that reaction, laying a hand on his hip as he asked, “What? You don’t agree with that?”</p><p>“No, I… see your point of view very well,” Dimitri said quietly, not quite meeting Felix’s stare. <em>Neither </em>one of them quite looked the other in the eye. “But I also understand being the one that’s being given up on. I find it a terribly lonely thought.”</p><p>“Save the empathy for someone else,” Felix said. With that, the conversation ended, leaving awkward silence between them.</p><p>Maybe now Dimitri would get it into his head that Felix wasn’t going to be a pleasant friend to have around.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Dimitri didn’t. In fact, he asked whether Felix would mind if he stayed for a little while to keep him company.</p><p>Felix could admit being at home by himself was boring. He could <em>almost</em> admit that Dimitri’s company was a much better alternative.</p><p>He let Dimitri stay, shrugging and muttering that he could do as he wanted.</p><p>They ended up in the small living room, Felix sprawling on the couch while Dimitri sat rigidly with his hands over his knees that were pressed together. It made for a funny sight, Dimitri trying to be all proper in an apartment smelling like dust.</p><p><em>Like a haunted house</em>, Felix thought, <em>where he’s playing nice for the ghosts.</em></p><p>They watched Netflix for some hours. Eventually Dimitri did relax on the couch and leaned back on it fully, barely bothering to stifle his laughter at some of the silliness in the action flick Felix had pulled up. Mindless entertainment, for sure, but somehow Felix found himself snorting every now and then along with Dimitri.</p><p>Dimitri got to pick what they watched next after that one. To Felix’s surprise, Dimitri picked one of the few nature documentaries.</p><p>“You <em>really</em> like them, huh,” Felix commented when the screen was taken over by a lynx in the middle of its hunt, crouching and stilling as the camera focused on a gold-speckled eye.  He remembered Dimitri mentioning something of the like before.</p><p>“They’re charming creatures,” Dimitri said, a little defensively.</p><p>“You seem more like a dog person, though.”</p><p>“People keep saying that.” Dimitri sighed, and his face fell at his own words. He shifted awkwardly, crossing his arms over his chest and crinkling his dress shirt. Outside of his large sweaters, Dimitri’s wide build was easier to notice. This shirt in particular accentuated his muscles. Felix pointedly looked away as Dimitri continued. “I’m – well. It’s secondhand admiration, you could say.”</p><p>“Secondhand, huh.”</p><p>“Yes.” Dimitri sounded faintly uncomfortable – or embarrassed. “Someone very dear to me was… well. Lynxes were his favorites, in a way.”</p><p>Felix looked back to the screen and stayed silent as the documentarist’s voice took over. For the first time in a while, Felix found himself relaxing inside the walls that made up what should have been his home and safe place.</p><p>The world didn’t bend to <em>should-have-been</em>s, though. Never had.  </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Dimitri ended up staying until Felix’s father came home, though – to be fair to Dimitri – Felix’s father arrived home full two hours before his usual time. For once, the man wouldn’t be eating cold leftovers from the dinner Felix had painstakingly made himself.</p><p>Felix and Dimitri had just sat down to eat their share when the outdoor opened to let in the weary old man.</p><p>“I’m home, Felix,” Rodrigue Fraldarius called out, and Felix heard the unmistakable sounds of clothes rustling and shoes being gingerly kicked off.</p><p>“We’re here in the kitchen,” Felix yelled back. “Dinner’s done.” If the old man was in the mood to eat. After a long day at the hospital, it could go either way. Felix had left a clean plate on the kitchen counter for his father regardless.</p><p>“We?” The old man’s head peeked into the kitchen soon enough, tired eyes widening at the sight of Dimitri at his dinner table. Dimitri, tall and wide as he was, must have made quite the amusing picture across from Felix, who was muscular but nowhere near as tall. “…Oh. I wasn’t expecting you to have company.”</p><p> “Don’t get used to it,” Felix muttered as he fiddled with his fork. On the other side of the table, Dimitri straightened and offered Felix’s old man a polite smile. “Dimitri helped me get groceries.”</p><p>“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Dimitri said. If he were a puppy, Felix got the impression he would be wagging his tail at the man.</p><p>His father’s eyes narrowed as a puzzled look crossed his face, as though the sight of Felix having a friend over was truly so confounding. “The pleasure is all mine,” he said in the end, slowly as he studied Dimitri. “Dimitri, you said your name was? I’m Felix’s father, Rodrigue Fraldarius, if you haven’t gathered.”</p><p>“I have gotten that impression, yes,” Dimitri said as he stood to shake hands with the man. Felix stayed where he was, eating his risotto in irritated silence while glaring at the two from the corner of his eye.</p><p>Something about the way Dimitri smiled at his old man struck Felix as odd and subdued, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. And that annoyed him.</p><p>Well, Dimitri wouldn’t be the first person to pity the man for losing both his wife and first son. Felix shoved the useless musings aside and kept on munching on the spicy risotto Dimitri had barely assisted him in making. In the end, the old man ate with him, conversing quietly with Dimitri and occasionally glancing at Felix curiously, as though expecting Felix to explain something.</p><p>Felix didn’t.</p><p>Still, it wasn’t the worst meal Felix had ever had.</p><p>After Dimitri had gone, though, the old man couldn’t seem to resist voicing one of his useless thoughts out loud: “He seems like a fine young man, Felix. I’m glad to see you’re making new friends.”</p><p>“He’s not a friend,” Felix insisted. “Just an acquaintance.”</p><p>His father smiled at that. “You say the same about Sylvain sometimes, son.”</p><p>Felix didn’t have a real answer, and so he grumbled and went to (angrily) wash the dishes.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next up: Dimitri POV for a change! </p><p>Next chapter'll be up on August 16th.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. dont forget you're still alive</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>His morning starts with a call to Dedue and a roadtrip to a grave.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter warnings: Dimitri's mental health issues/symptoms differ in the present time of this fic from his canonical symptoms a little bit, so take that into account. Brief description of what's under Dimitri's eyepatch. </p><p>+ mentioned ableism in fae society</p><p>Generally, uh, not the most cheerful of moods in this chapter.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Once upon a time, there was a young god with blond hair and eyes the color of ice. His father’s eyes, many said on their first meeting with him.</p><p>The young god and his father often traveled among humans in what back then was Kingdom of Faerghus. None recognized them to be any different from them, and so the two gods wandered from one village to the next without much hassle.</p><p>Back in those days, Faerghus was a small kingdom, only consisting of three houses: Blaiddyd, Fraldarius, and Gautier. Of the three, only Gautier hadn’t received their name from an entity more powerful than a human could wish to be. Gautiers were proud of that: human pride in human accomplishments.</p><p>The little god’s father explained this to him patiently as he guided them into one of the few thick forests in the land.</p><p>“We are in Fraldarius now, Mityushka.”</p><p>More specifically, they had entered the fae lands. Fae folk lived everywhere, but Fraldarius was a special case: the human nobility had been granted a fae name, and fairies and humans lived together in harmony that was found nowhere else in Fódlan.</p><p>But even in Fraldarius, the fae loved their secluded forests and sacred trees. The young god’s father took him to one of these sacred places through a path few had walked before. The little god – called <em>Mityushka</em> with great affection – stared at his surroundings with great awe shining on his young face.</p><p>It was summertime in Faerghus, but the lands had never been full of life in the way Adrestia and Leicester in south were. The young god knew this not, however; what little Faerghus had to offer was a miracle to a child raised atop the mountains at the borders of Faerghus and Sreng.</p><p>But even to Adrestian and Leicester standards, the forest abode where the fairies lived was striking in color and magnificence. Air vibrated with different magics, and it glimmered around the two gods, warm and inviting like a cup of one’s favorite hot drink.</p><p>Trees hovered over them protectively as the young god and his father ventured deeper into the woods, the path soon overtaken with damp moss and foliage. Above them, among the treetops, the fae folk could be seen flitting about, sun catching on their translucent wings.</p><p>The little god could not tear his eyes away from them, eyes wide with wonder. His father chuckled at his reaction and ruffled at his hair with great affection. “A majestic sight, isn’t it, Mityushka?”</p><p>‘Mityushka’ could not find it in himself to answer his father’s remark. He only clung harder to the big hand holding his as they went on their way until one of the many fairies fluttered down to greet them.</p><p>His wings were dark green, the color of the forest, and the little god was again transfixed by the way they glimmered every time a straying ray of sunshine fell upon them. The fairy bowed to them, strands of long midnight-colored hair falling from their shoulders as if to entice the little god to pull at them.</p><p>“My father has been waiting for your arrival,” the fairy spoke to the old god, tone not nearly as reverent as Mitya had heard from others addressing his father.</p><p>“How is my old friend doing, Glenn? Last I heard, he…”</p><p>‘Glenn’ shook his head as he gestured for the two gods to follow.</p><p>“He is the same as ever,” Glenn said, a serious tone beneath the airy voice. The little god was too transfixed by the fairy to notice. “Today is one of the better days, as it happens.”</p><p>Glenn led them deeper into the forest, where colors were brighter and air sweeter. Mitya’s eyes remained glued to the fairy’s bare back, however. Asides from the deep green wings, Glenn’s back was decorated with faintly glowing runes and other markings that reached up to the fairy’s face and narrowing ears.</p><p>They were magic runes, the little god knew. His knowledge was lacking, but he suspected they were for wind magic.</p><p>All the fae he could see fluttering around wore similar backless tunics or dresses as Glenn, but Glenn’s was without a doubt the most ornate one, shimmering where sunlight so much as grazed at it.</p><p>In time, Mitya would learn that this was the high prince of the fae.</p><p>Eventually – in what could be as little as ten minutes or as long as two hours – the gods and their guide reached a wide clearing lined by fir trees and moss. At the center of it was a shimmering throne made from fairy gold. Instead of yellow, it shone with the colors of the forest, each shade greener than the last.</p><p>Between the fairy gold, flowers grew attached to the throne, much to the little god’s amazement.</p><p>Before Mitya could take more in, his father was already kneeling before throne’s feet, nudging Mitya to follow suit. “Oh, King of Fairies,” his father said, with great amusement in his voice, “we have come from afar to greet you. Allow us rest for our weary feet?”</p><p>Mitya dared to look up then, up to the throne from which a fairy stood up. Glenn had gone to his side, but the king gently pushed Glenn’s hands aside as he tried to assist him.</p><p>Many of the fae the little god of winter had seen on his way through the forest had glowed faintly with their respective magics. Their king however, as he walked down the steps from to the seat of his throne, showed no signs of such magical glow. There were no runes on his pallid skin, what little Mitya could see of it – but then, the Fairy King wore long-sleeved robes, leaving only his hands and face uncovered from the front.</p><p>“Lambert,” the Fairy King said wearily as he walked down to them, his voice chastising as he addressed the older of the gods, “one such as you should never kneel for anyone.”</p><p>Up close, it became apparent that unlike all the other fairies Mitya and his father had seen on their way, the King himself only had one wing. It fluttered weakly at each brush of wind, but it would not carry the fairy.</p><p>One-winged fae, gods oft whispered among themselves, were outcasts of their society; shunned and mocked for their disability. For what good was a flightless fairy?</p><p>And yet – to the little god’s astonishment – the other fae regarded him with respect that bordered on reverence; all but Glenn knelt around them, even the fae in the air made some vague gesture of honor for their king.</p><p>Glenn followed his father down.</p><p>The elder god said, voice booming over the forest noise: “My wife oft tells me I need to be humbled down, my friend. I figured this was a good time to start.”</p><p>The fae king laughed at the god’s words as he came lower down the moss-green stairs. “She may be right in that, but I will not have you bow down to me. Rise, and we will have a drink for old times’ sake.”</p><p>But Mitya’s attention was already on something – <em>someone</em> else: a little shadow that trailed behind the fairy king, with tiny, deep blue wings occasionally peeking out.</p><p>Mitya, once again, was mesmerized. As if in a dream, he stood to his feet as his father did, but his gaze remained behind the tall legs of the king his father and he had come all this way to greet.</p><p>The one-winged king noticed his gaze and hummed softly. “Fee, I believe the little one would like to see you properly.”</p><p>Glenn laughed from behind his father. With his laughter, the wind around them grew warmer as it brushed past the gods. “Fee-fee, it’s no use hiding. You’ve been noticed.”</p><p>The fairy king stepped aside, fast enough for the little shadow to not attach to his legs again. What was revealed made Mitya’s eyes grow wide: a young fairy of about the little god’s size emerged from his hiding place, long and narrow ears peeking through his long hair, midnight blue like his father and brother’s.</p><p>‘Fee-fee’ met his gaze for the briefest of moments, a glimpse of golden eyes showing before the fairy turned his gaze down, cheeks puffed out as he pouted.</p><p>The little god blurted out, reaching his hand out as humans did: “It’s nice to meet you! My name is…”</p><p>Fee’s eyes met his once more. Slowly, he took Mitya’s hand. “I’m Fee.”</p><p>Their fathers smiled at them, but the children noticed nothing outside of each other.</p><p>Later – much, much later – the winter god would jokingly call it love at first sight.</p><p>For not even a single day from there on did the little god ever forget about the fairy’s existence.</p><p>(But even so, they had a long, long way ahead of them before they would become what the legends spoke of.)</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dimitri woke slowly to the feeling of his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. He could not move himself from his bed – which was only a mattress, truth be told – and his breath got caught in his throat as he forced his eye open, his hand already clutching at his chest where the age-old pendant lay.</p><p>He dreamed of the past too often. His sister had told him so much, with a disapproving curl of her lip but which often softened into understanding as they conversed further.</p><p>But it was better that he dreamt dreams like these, instead of the other ones. Though even these ones left him disoriented and blurry-minded and often made him search for a body that wasn’t beside him. That hadn’t been there for a long, long time.</p><p>Waking up used to break his heart.</p><p>Dimitri slowly rolled to his side, his hand around the pendant while the other reached for the phone on the floor beside the mattress. After an embarrassingly long moment of fumbling around, he got the device in his hand and squinted at the lit-up screen that claimed he had one new message waiting to be read from Dedue.</p><p>Dimitri blinked as he opened it. He used to break a phone per morning like this, but his current one tolerated his thoughtless handling of it pretty well.</p><p><em>Good morning,</em> dark letters declared from the pale screen. <em>Call me when you see this.</em></p><p>The time was barely—</p><p>Oh, it was 6 am already. Dimitri had slept more than usual. He blinked again before pushing himself up and shuffling until his feet met the cold floor of his apartment. Inhale, exhale, and the world became a little sharper to his one seeing eye.</p><p>He called Dedue after a minute more spent on waking up. The apartment was quite dark still, but one press of a button wasn’t so bad he could fail it even with his infamous clumsiness with delicate objects.</p><p>“Good morning,” Dedue greeted him in that pleasant low voice of his after a couple of rings. “You managed to sleep better than usual, I take it.”</p><p>“I think so,” Dimitri said, rubbing his palm over his usually covered eye. The stitches brushed against the calloused skin, and Dimitri slowed his hand as he remembered. “I didn’t have nightmares this time, I believe.”</p><p>Dedue stayed silent for a moment. Taken aback with relief, perhaps. When he spoke again, his voice was as gentle and understanding as it had ever been. “That is good news. I am glad to hear so.”</p><p>“How is Duscur?” Dimitri asked, antsy to change the topic. The dream loomed at the corner of his mind – and while it was not an unpleasant one, it still made him feel like crying.</p><p>Alas, he had been robbed of his tears a long time ago.</p><p>“The capital or the country?” Dedue asked, chuckling.</p><p>“Both,” Dimitri said and smiled. These jokes always reminded him of— “It hasn’t been that long since the independence, after all. I hope both are faring fine.”</p><p>“…Alexandre.” Dedue’s voice dipped into a somber tone then. “What year do you believe we’re living in?”</p><p>“What? That is a silly question, Dedue,” Dimitri laughed, though his breath hitched at the end as his chest constricted with dread. “It is, of course, the Imperial Year—”</p><p>“No, it is not,” Dedue interjected, calm and steady as ever. “The Adrestian Empire withered away many centuries ago. You know this as well as I. Duscur has been independent for quite a while, as well.”</p><p>Dedue’s words knocked the breath right out of Dimitri. For a moment, he could do nothing but stare into the morning darkness in his apartment.</p><p>“Alexandre,” Dedue repeated his long-lost name once more. “Which year is it now?”</p><p>“Federal Year… eleven hundred something?”</p><p>“Close enough.” Dedue sounded relieved. “Do you remember where you are?”</p><p>The answer came to him easily this time. Outside the windows opposite to his bed, streetlamp light shone as snow fell, heavy like the unrest in Dimitri’s heart. “Fhirdiad. My Fhirdiad apartment.”</p><p>“Good,” Dedue said. A short silence followed before Dedue cleared his throat and went on, “I know you told me you would manage on your own, but I hope you know I will be at your side in an instant should you wish it.”</p><p>Dimitri sighed, but little by little he felt more aware of the present moment. “No, Dedue. I am doing well enough by myself… it takes a while to recover from summer, as you know. I will be fine when the Red Wolf Moon comes along. In a few days.”</p><p>The conversation went on a bit longer, but the topic shifted from Dimitri’s fraying mind and its capacity for remembering to Dedue’s current life in Duscur. A new national park had been opened recently. As someone with great fondness for nature, this pleased Dedue greatly – and in return, it pleased Dimitri as well.</p><p>He remembered too vividly when Dedue had been unhappy and sullen, his lands barren and trampled by soldiers with shimmering boots and Faerghus banners. Those times had been… difficult, to say the least.</p><p>Dimitri put the phone down and went on with his morning routine of making breakfast on autopilot – it was not much, and his sister would nag him for his unhealthy behavior despite her own unhealthy behaviors – while thinking of other matters.</p><p>Such as Felix.</p><p>And Felix’s father. Ac— No, that was not his name. What was it? Dimitri knew introductions had been made, but pulling out the specific memory was like tracking a nail in a heap of hay.</p><p>Dimitri’s stomach churned as he sat down to eat his cereal. The LED lights hurt his eye, so he hadn’t turned any on as he waited for the sunrise to break through the horizon. He ate in silence, again on autopilot as he tried to think.</p><p>The man had had a lonely aura to him. Exhausted and lonely, to the very pit of his soul. It had been difficult to sit there and watch him and Felix, both of them with such tangled emotions radiating off of them.</p><p>For an empath, it would have been insufferable. For Dimitri, it had only been uncomfortable – for he knew not what to do. Dedue wouldn’t know, either, he thought. Dedue had never been close to them in the way Dimitri had in the past, though Dedue knew the details well enough.</p><p>There were <em>those two</em>, but…their ways of dealing with parent-child relations were not something to follow. Dimitri suppressed a sigh by swallowing down more of his cereal, surrounded by the deathly silence of late Wyvern morning.</p><p>Outside, snow fell in tandem with Dimitri’s erratic thoughts.</p><p>Rodrigue.</p><p>The man’s name had been Rodrigue.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After breakfast, he moved back to the alcove where his “bed” was but first he picked up an ornate wooden box from the apartment’s solitary bookshelf. He sat down cradling it between his hands, a soft smile finally rising to his lips. Tremulous, like it would break any moment.</p><p>On the lid, intricate carvings danced around like wildfire. Human-like figures portrayed playing flutes and other wooden instruments. On one of the box’s sides, a fox lay curled up, its ears relaxed on its head.</p><p>A remarkable piece of craftsmanship, but even it had taken a few beatings over the years. The paint on it had worn off many moons ago. Still, Dimitri found it almost more beautiful this way.</p><p>Upon opening the box, a wooden figure of a fairy sprang up, discernable only for the shape of the wings on its back. Accompanying the fae figure was the soft melody of a song, which never failed to stir an ancient longing in Dimitri. It was a happy song by all accounts, and yet…</p><p>There had been a time when he couldn’t go on a day without opening the lid and listening to the song that made him think of his father and all the things lost to the unwritten pages of history. It made him think of his stepmother and his sister, though only one of them was truly beyond his reach now.</p><p>It made him think of a love long perished and of a love returned.</p><p>His father had never been a great appreciator of arts, but he had always loved music. This was the song he listened to with closed eyes again and again, again and again, until his end came.</p><p>Before the melody could fade away, Dimitri closed the box with a sharp twist of his wrist, snapping out of his reverie.</p><p>The world would not wait for his sorrow to calm.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p><em>Everything fine?</em> Felix inquired through text not too long after the sun had begun to peek past the horizon. Felix didn’t use smiley faces – <em>emojis</em>, as Khalid insisted they were called – but Dimitri discerned concern in the scarcity of Felix’s words.</p><p>It brought a faint smile to Dimitri’s face as he began typing a response as he held the phone between his two hands.</p><p><em>I am all right, </em>he reassured Felix. <em>I overslept a little. I think the break week is ruining my discipline. </em>With some effort, Dimitri managed to add a sad smiley face at the end of the message before sending it on. Felix shouldn’t have class just yet, if he remembered right.</p><p><em>Waking up after 6 am is generally considered fine, you know</em> was Felix’s next message. <em>Sylvain sleeps past noon sometimes</em> followed it, and Dimitri could imagine Felix’s frown as he wrote the words. His smile slipped as another memory resurfaced – one which he had dreamed of far too often over the years.</p><p><em>This time,</em> Dimitri thought as he stroked at his phone’s sides, <em>I won’t make the same mistakes. </em></p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Ingrid came to get him after eight am. Sun had risen by then, though clouds kept it hidden from Faerghan skies as Dimitri squeezed himself into Ingrid’s car, which was stuffed to the brim with candy wrappers and takeout boxes.</p><p>“Don’t you have class soon?” Dimitri asked five minutes into the silent drive. He fiddled with the sleeves of his half-open coat. “You don’t have to take me if you have other plans.”</p><p>“There are more important things than class,” Ingrid said firmly. Her hands twitched on the steering wheel before their grip tightened. Beneath the gloves, Dimitri imagined her knuckles to whiten as she muttered, “Besides, dealing with people wears me out. This is a convenient break for me too.”</p><p><em>I hate them, </em>Ingrid had once told him on the brink of tears. Her hair had run free back then, though it had been covered in mud and dirt. Now she kept it shorter and a part braided behind her head. <em>I hate them for taking something so precious away from me. From us. I cannot even imagine how you must feel.</em></p><p>Dimitri’s lips pursed into a line. “Ingrid, we have spoken about this.”</p><p>“I know, I know,” Ingrid sighed. “I am just not as flexible as you are in this matter, Dimitri.”</p><p>She turned on the radio and remained silent, her eyes never leaving the road before them as they drove through central Fhirdiad and then headed to north. They passed by the ancient castle along the way, and Dimitri’s eyes lingered on the enormous building the whole time.</p><p>Once, the walls had offered protection to the royal family of Faerghus – the family said to have received both their name and royalty from the gods themselves. But the Kingdom’s days were buried long in the past now, even if House Blaiddyd’s banner was still the country’s flag.</p><p>The flag fluttered in the wind at the top of each castle tower, as if waving Ingrid and Dimitri a goodbye as they drove out of Fhirdiad.</p><p>It wasn’t that he couldn’t drive himself; he had a car of his own, after all, and he hadn’t experienced any accidents on the road by himself yet. But Dedue and others always insisted on someone to accompany him during these little trips he made – pilgrimages, almost, to the spot where a part of him had died a long time ago.</p><p>He now knew it was masochism. Many of the things he had done over the years were that, really.</p><p>Dimitri sighed and rubbed his palms over his eyes. He’d left the eyepatch back in the apartment.</p><p>“Are your eyes alright?” Ingrid asked over the country music blaring from the radio. Ingrid’s hands tightened on the wheel again. “…Feeling like crying?”</p><p>“No,” Dimitri said, smiling faintly. The expression felt odd on his face: stretched and forceful. “It must be my oversleeping. They feel itchy and dry… and I ran out of tears a long time ago. As you know.”</p><p>“You haven’t been using your eye drops, have you?” Ingrid sighed. “Dimitri…”</p><p>“I know, I know,” Dimitri murmured as he nuzzled into his scarf to hide the embarrassed flush. Being cared for still threw him off balance after spending so many years of wallowing in silence and by himself. But he had never been alone – not with so many that cared.</p><p>If only it had been enough back then…</p><p>His eyes, even the unusable one, burned. If he were able, he would cry.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>After an hour-long ride, they finally arrived at their destination. Ingrid parked the car beside a narrow road that had been taken over by still accumulating snow. Around them, fir tree branches drooped from the flakes they caught.</p><p>“Ingrid,” Dimitri called out just as they had got out of the car. Ingrid’s hand halted, kept from shutting the door completely as Dimitri continued, “Your ears are showing.”</p><p>The braid she had tied around the back of her hair had slipped, and a bit of the narrow end of her ear showed. Most of it still hid under her hair, but it was enough for someone to tell at a glance that the shape of the cold-flushed ear was too long and narrow for a human.</p><p>Ingrid shrugged like it wasn’t an issue and shut the car door. “There’s no one around us now, I think I’ll be safe. I’ll tie it up properly when we get back to Fhirdiad.”</p><p>“Alright.”</p><p>From there, they ventured into the forest that hugged the road from both sides. Trees hovered over them, their branches scratching at their jackets along with the wind’s far gentler brush.</p><p>“There didn’t use to be so many trees out there,” Dimitri huffed, watching his words become mist in the air. He paused, snow crunching beneath his feet. The snow fell harder to the rhythm of his heartbeat. “Am I wrong?”</p><p>“It’s been a while since you last visited, hasn’t it?”</p><p>“Yes,” Dimitri said haltingly, burying his hands into his elbows and swallowing back emotion. “Too long…”</p><p>Ingrid turned back to smile at him, her green eyes bright. “Been too long since your last jog, too, right? Come on, the last one there buys the loser lunch.”</p><p>Just as it always had, the possibility of a free meal sent her running. Dimitri chased after her with a fond smile curling along his mouth. The forest thinned soon enough, the fingers of tree branches no longer scratching along Dimitri’s jacket sleeves, and opened to reveal wide fields of pure white with only the barest hints of skiing trails.</p><p>At the center of the field stood a tall rock, and Ingrid was already halfway there. Dimitri picked up the pace and hopped down the small decline before the forest. The snow crunched beneath his feet and dampened the legs of his pants, and Dimitri found that breathing hadn’t been this easy in a long time.</p><p>When he reached the rock, Ingrid smiled and clapped at his shoulder. “We really need to get you out jogging more often.”</p><p>“I do enough of it at hockey practice,” Dimitri said, grinning as he swept hair back and away from his eyes. “Though more wouldn’t be a terrible idea.”</p><p>“That’s the spirit,” Ingrid said as she turned to look at the rock that hovered taller than Dimitri. Nothing was written on it: nothing marked it as the gravestone that it was. “Should I leave you to it?”</p><p>Dimitri shook his head. “I am here only for one thing,” he said, “and it is not wallowing.”</p><p>He took off the glove and held out his hand, closing his eye as he tried to locate what he was looking for. The lingering traces of regret and fear and nostalgia – he could smell them even with his questionably working nose. Or perhaps it was his deodorant. Difficult to say.</p><p>The snow fell harder around him as his heartbeat quickened and familiar nausea threatened to rise up his throat. It had been a long, long time, but returning to this place never got any easier. Even if now… even if he had a second chance now.</p><p>Through the layers of soil, his consciousness found the items he had been looking for. He curled his fingers – and just like that, the chilly metal of two meticulously crafted gifts rested against the palm of his hand.</p><p>Dimitri opened his eye.</p><p>On his hand lay a pair of golden earrings, stained with soil and which had long since lost their shine.</p><p>“They really were here still,” Dimitri murmured to no one at all, curling his fingers around the earrings. “After all this time.”</p><p>Ingrid came to him, careful to not touch. Her ears flushed at the tips, but otherwise she didn’t appear chilled. “Of course they were,” she said quietly. “No one else knows what this place means to us.”</p><p>“That’s right.” Dimitri closed his eye and exhaled, the pounding in his chest easing. The thick snowfall thinned into a lighter dance. Softly, he asked, “We have attended to my business. Should we go visit him, too?”</p><p>Ingrid didn’t answer at first. When he opened his eye to look at her, Ingrid’s face had scrunched, pain written all over it.</p><p>“No,” she said, pressing her hand against her elbow. “It’s fine. I have done my grieving.”</p><p>So she had, but the pain on her face looked too fresh, too new. Dimitri opened his mouth to ask about it in further detail, but Ingrid shook her head at him. “Let it be, Dimitri. We should get back to Fhirdiad. I have my own hockey practice to attend to today, anyway.”</p><p>Dimitri let it go and followed Ingrid back to the car, through the woods and snow, earrings tightly clasped in his once more gloved hand.</p><p>The future he had been struggling to find for himself had come, he reminded himself. The past, no matter how painful, was just that.</p><p>The past.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next up is more Felix (and his other friends) on August 30th. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. cheer before the storm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Felix has incredibly nosy acquaintances (friends) even outside of Sylvain.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter warnings: vaguely described/mentioned gore, grief</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red Wolf Moon arrived with the shine of full moon at night and with roads fully iced in the morning. Felix switched from his morning jog to morning yoga. Sylvain started staying out long into morning again, looking more ruffled and unbalanced than ever whenever he stepped into the apartment.</p><p>Felix didn’t ask. Sylvain didn’t tell.</p><p>But he would, eventually. Neither of them were good enough at bottling their emotions up, but both were certainly busy right then. Felix had assignments to finish: an essay, a group project (a waste of everyone’s time and the few’s efforts), and some readings on historical ecoterrorism or whatever was labeled as such. It made him think of Dimitri and his history major.</p><p>Annette called him to groan about her latest translation assignments. Felix had said it once, and he still thought it often, but she really had picked an unfortunate topic to major in. When he had said it, though, Annette had called him… ‘a foolish side character who ends up being killed because of his own inability to see things from another’s perspective in a crime novel’ or something of the like.</p><p>She had been quite distressed on his behalf, for some reason.</p><p>A little ridiculous. Felix couldn’t understand her most times. But he liked her, and perhaps that was enough for a friendship. Sometimes they gathered together with Mercedes and Ashe for a group study, though it never went quite as expected. The last time they did that they had ended up hate-watching a paranormal romance film.</p><p>Mercedes praised it for its gore. Ashe had looked a little ill by the end. Felix had been mostly bored. Annette had criticized the story structure and been disappointed with the female protagonist’s story arc and character development.</p><p>“It’s a romance,” Felix had told her. “They’re all like that.”</p><p>“That’s no excuse,” she said firmly.</p><p>She didn’t have time to read much on her own – the avid reader of the group was Ashe, if anyone, who was unfortunately also a literature major. Perhaps it was her translation assignments getting to her, Felix mused. He had seen the crap the professors made her translate, fiction and non-fiction alike.</p><p>On Red Wolf’s first Saturday, they gathered for another study session, though Felix already knew it was going to be for naught as Mercedes was bringing her baked goods with her. No one could resist them. <em>No one.</em> Felix always left the sweeter things on the plate, but the rest of them?  Into his mouth they went.</p><p>They met up at Annette’s house, where she lived with her uncle and mother. Unlike Felix and Sylvain, she had never felt the need to escape her family.</p><p>It was a nice suburban house, though a little worn from the many years it had gone on without renovation.</p><p>Felix arrived there in tandem with Ashe, who nearly knocked him over with his bike. To the other’s credit, he swerved away from Felix just in time and without crashing into anything else, not even the wooden fence by the roadside. His bike skidded to a halt, nearly throwing off its rider as it did.</p><p>Felix pocketed his earbuds and looked at Ashe and his blanched face. “Hey.”</p><p>“Oh – hi, Felix. Sorry about that.” Ashe, sweeping his dyed hair away from his face, smiled apologetically and a little nervously. The gray day did nothing to conceal the dark bags under Ashe’s eyes as he got off the bike and took it to Annette’s yard while Felix followed. “I wasn’t watching where I was going… a real hazard to the traffic, aren’t I?”</p><p> “I know worse.” Felix technically had a license to drive a car. Sylvain had taken it hostage some months back, saying <em>if you can’t treat a car well, I’m afraid of what you would do to the ladies, Felix.</em> To which Felix had said <em>what the fuck does that have to do with anything</em> before Sylvain had laughed and waltzed off with his license.</p><p>Inside, Annette’s home had the same feeling as the apartment Felix’s old man occupied but didn’t really live in. Lonely, cold, and with memories too heavy to speak of. Muted colors and cracking paint job. Antique furniture. A huge grandfather clock that Annette said used to keep her up at night with all its noise.</p><p>But even in a gloomy home like this, Annette still wore a bright smile when she came to greet them just as they slipped off their shoes and hung their jackets.</p><p>“You made it!” she said, excitement making her stumble before she caught herself again. Behind her, Mercedes emerged, her bob of hair a little messier than usual but a smile reached her eyes as always. Annie linked their arms and gushed, “Mercie already arrived hours ago to bake for us. Isn’t she just the best?”</p><p> “Oh, wow!” Ashe’s voice brightened instantly as he and Felix followed the two women upstairs toward where the study Annette’s father had once used was. “I’ve missed your baked sweets, Mercedes, I really have.”</p><p>“If they’re all sweets, no thanks,” Felix said with a sigh, fingers drumming on the strap of his back as he climbed after the other three. “I still don’t like them.”</p><p>“Oh, I think I managed to fix something up for you too, Felix,” Mercedes said. “Don’t you worry about it.”</p><p>So he was going to be testing something for her. Wonderful.</p><p>(As long as she didn’t try actual cooking, though, the results of her playing around with dough and such ended in resounding success most times.</p><p>Felix might have told her so once. Which might be why she was so eager to lump her test samples on him. No good deed went unpunished.)</p><p>Felix sighed, but said nothing. Ashe and Annette did all the speaking for him.</p><p>They weren’t the worst friends a man could have, but they were like fresh triple-A Duracell batteries. Too energetic for too long.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The “study” was closer to a proper library than a room for one man to work in. After Gilbert, Annette’s father, had been hospitalized, the room had been refurnished and repurposed for the use of Annette and her many, <em>many</em> studious friends. Asides from Felix and co, she studied with other people either from her major or just people close to her age she had met at the university one way or another.</p><p>He knew this because Annette was a classic oversharer and he, without intending to, listened to her attentively. It was better than thinking about his dad or Glenn or the million reasons why his relationships were doomed from the start, at least. Annette made him smile.</p><p>Felix plopped down on his usual seat at the round table at the center of the room while the others grabbed theirs. Mercedes’ baked goods rested on two plates, and a few more were stacked beside it.</p><p>“I thought we came here to study, not to snack,” Felix griped even as he took a plate and eyed through the sweet stuff for whatever Mercedes had made thinking of him. He didn’t need to look far: one of the plates was filled with sliced up meat pie.</p><p>“How much do you think I eat, Mercedes?” Felix said even as he took two slices to his own plate. His hand reached out to snipe a couple of the pastries, as well. Mercedes kindly pretended to not notice.</p><p>She wasn’t bothered by his tone of voice and merely shrugged. “I thought we all might as well try it out? And I know I myself have quite the stomach for food. We can throw some away if they didn’t turn out good, though.”</p><p>The very thought of tossing pastries and pie away made her face scrunch up in mild pain.</p><p>“All your pastries are delicious, Mercie,” Annette insisted as she was readying her own study space on the opposite side of the table. Felix grimaced at the size of the dictionary she dragged out from her bag – at least three times thicker than the thickest book Felix had ever had to go through in lower education. Or, hell, even in university.</p><p>When done, Annette let out a little huff and reached for a pastry as well.</p><p>For the first twenty minutes of their supposed study session, they did nothing but eat pastries and drink either soda or tea while chatting about nonsensical things. Felix’s inherent interest in medieval swords wasn’t one of those.</p><p>“Oh, Felix, by the way,” Ashe began, perking up and turning to Felix, “who’s the man you’ve been hanging out with recently? I don’t think I’ve met him before.”</p><p>Sad as it was, Ashe did know Felix’s social circle in its entirety. He and Ingrid even had a book club between the two of them, though when talking about it, Ingrid always got a distinctly uncomfortable look on her face.</p><p>Felix had never asked what they read. It was for the best. Especially after Sylvain’s suggestion that perhaps they read pornographic romance novels together, despite how wildly out of character it would be for both Ingrid and Ashe.</p><p>If Felix’s reading of them was wrong, he didn’t want to know.</p><p>“Ohhhhhh.” Annette grinned at Ashe’s question and turned her eyes to Felix in an instant. As cheerful as her face was, she sounded a little offended, too. “You made a new friend, Felix? You didn’t tell me!”</p><p>“I met him like a month ago,” Felix said defensively.</p><p>“A <em>month</em>? Felix! That’s an eternity for you!” Annette curled her lower lip at him, while Mercedes set her hand on Annette’s elbow.</p><p>“Easy there, Annie,” she said softly. “I’m sure Felix was just waiting for a right moment to introduce him to us. Isn’t that right, Felix?”</p><p>The look in Mercedes’ gentle eyes brooked no room for argument. Felix flushed and shrugged as he leaned back on his chair, stubbornly shoving his chin to his chest to avoid eye contact.</p><p>“I hadn’t thought about it,” he muttered. “He’s just a weird guy. Thought he’d leave me be pretty fast.”</p><p>“Buuuut…?” Annette leaned further on the table, her elbows thudding against the wood.</p><p>“But that didn’t happen, I guess.” Felix bit at his lip, considering how much he was going to regret saying anything further. “He texts me every day. Persistently. Stupidly formal, but not too bad to talk with.”</p><p>“Felix, must I repeat myself?” Annette looked at him sternly, but the smile on her lips killed the effect the look should have had. “This is progress! You’re warming up to people! Mercie, do you think we should uncork that bottle of champagne my father kept in his bedside closet?”</p><p>“Annie, you’re getting a little overexcited,” Mercedes said, shushing her with a gentle squeeze at Annette’s arm. Felix tilted his head lower still, just to avoid looking at them. He ended up staring at his half-eaten pie slice and its meaty fillings.  </p><p>“So, who’s this guy?” Ashe asked again, more cautiously but no less sincerely. “You seemed to have pretty fun time with him at lunch when I saw you two.”</p><p>“He’s—just some guy named Dimitri.” With freakish strength. Felix remembered the snapped pencils and the four heavy plastic bags Dimitri had carried to his old man’s house. Maybe if Felix pretended to be indifferent about him, Annette and others would let it go. “He’s childhood friends with Ingrid, or something. Moved back to Fhirdiad recently. We met at the open-for-all lecture series that Miss Flayn is holding.”</p><p>“Oh.” Ashe’s voice brightened with recognition. “<em>That’s</em> the Dimitri Ingrid’s been talking about? I expected something very different from her stories.”</p><p>“Huh.” Felix looked at Ashe. “She never told me anything about him before we met.”</p><p>“Well, she only mentioned his name recently,” Ashe admitted thoughtfully, rubbing at his chin as he obviously dug through his memories for the details. “But I’ve heard all about the childhood friend she had that she used to wrestle with and whose nose she accidentally broke at one point. I don’t know if it’s this Dimitri, precisely, but I assume it must be.”</p><p>Felix thought about Dimitri’s nose. It had certainly taken a few beatings before. “Makes sense to me.”</p><p>“Details, Felix,” Annette urged. “Give us <em>details.</em>”</p><p>“What do you want me to say?” Felix scoffed at her persistence. “He said he got interested in my perspective and thoughts because of what we talked about before the lecture, and now he’s not leaving me alone. Though he will once he gets it into his thick skull that I won’t sleep with him.”</p><p>“Felix,” Mercedes said soothingly, “what makes you think that?”</p><p>Her gentle eyes stared into him like they saw right through his defense mechanisms. Felix looked down again, lips curling into a grimace. How was he supposed to fight against that? Without delving into his self-image issues.</p><p>“I’m not easy to like,” he said nonchalantly, shrugging in the very same way Sylvain often did when they accidentally brought up Miklan. Sylvain’s eyes always glazed over even if he smiled through it. “But as Sylvain keeps saying, I’m pretty hot or something.”</p><p>Sylvain didn’t really mean it in the way some other people did. Sylvain had seen him as a snot-nosed brat and before his name change. The way Sylvain treated him remained the same even after Felix rejected him in middle school, but other people were like weather wanes: blowing in one direction before turning to face another the next moment.</p><p>Some weather wanes just turned around more slowly than others.</p><p>“That’s not true,” Mercedes said, tilting her head as she observed him. “You rather remind me of my little brother, you know. I would never call him hot, either.”</p><p>“That’s—not the point, Mercedes.” Felix didn’t know why he bothered. Mercedes drew the oddest conclusions at times.</p><p>“He’s difficult to like, as you say you are. But that doesn’t mean either one of you is inherently unlikable.” Mercedes stroked at the edge of her teacup and smiled at him. A gentle little expression on a serene face. “Perhaps Dimitri is one of the people that see this, did you think of that?”</p><p>Felix sighed. It wasn’t that her point didn’t matter, but… “Who knows? I’m not a mind reader. Can we just get on with studying now?”</p><p>He didn’t particularly enjoy studying, but at least it was better than being badgered over a guy he was barely friends with and whose interest was flaky at best.</p><p>Beside Felix, Ashe grimaced and looked at the thick pile of printed paper before himself. Felix caught the religious symbols of Church of Seiros on the first page. Ashe sighed and rubbed at his neck. “That’s right… I have to read all this for one of my lit classes.”</p><p>“Then there’s no time like the present to get it started!” Annette declared with the same enthusiasm she had shown towards Felix’s new friend and clapped her hands together. “Mercie’s treats will get us all through our stuff. Thanks again, Mercie.”</p><p>“No need. You know I love baking almost as much as I love all of you.” Mercedes always managed to say things like that without so much as batting an eye. Felix would have choked before telling Sylvain that. </p><p>Felix killed the mushy thought by chewing on his pastry and pulling out his materials on the history of ecoterrorism. The movement itself hadn’t been an organized force before the last decades, but history was full of examples that fit the definition if one looked hard enough. Poor people killed for someone’s moral superiority complexes, nothing new there. For a bit of free, human-less land.</p><p>Felix could feel a headache coming on just from the introduction to the text.  Not the first time university reading would give him that, and not the last. Either way, all he could do was suck it up and read it and hope that he absorbed at least some of it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Oh, this is interesting,” Ashe’s voice cut through the silence after maybe fifteen minutes of focused studying. Felix didn’t lift his eyes from his papers but did gave a vague grunt to indicate that Ashe should go on.</p><p>“So, this reading is mostly about the legends of the Knights of Seiros, but there’s a few interesting tidbits about other stuff in here, too,” Ashe explained, excitement tinting his voice as it often did when Ashe got to talk about knights and other aspects of Faerghan mythology. “The god of winter and the goddess of spring are mentioned a few times.”</p><p>“Well, yeah,” Annette said. “The goddess of spring was why the order fell in the legends, right?”</p><p>“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. The goddess was one of Seiros’ descendants and was quite close to the knights at some point. There are several stories where she and her brother – the god of winter – help the knights to solve disputes across Fódlan.” Ashe had clearly shifted into his rambling storyteller mode, and Felix sighed and lifted his head to give Ashe a sideways glare.</p><p>Ashe wasn’t so easily deterred. He went on, eyes on the papers: “There’s also an unrelated story about how the god of winter lost his eye. There’s a few versions of it, actually. This one is a little different from the version I saw in Lonato’s books.”</p><p>Lost eye, huh? Felix’s thoughts went back to Dimitri and his covered eye. He hadn’t thought too much about it, certainly not enough to ask about what kind of an incident had led to him losing or injuring an eye.</p><p>He still wasn’t going to, but he mulled over it nevertheless. Something about it felt <em>odd</em>, and in a starkly different way from Dimitri’s general oddity. A disturbing sense of dread mixed in the general dèjá vu feeling Dimitri gave him.</p><p>“Oh?” Mercedes sounded curious. From the corner of his eye, Felix saw her close her notebook with a decisive little flick of her wrist before leaning forward on her seat. “How does this one go, Ashe?”</p><p>“It’s really rather sad,” Ashe said much too cheerfully. “I’d hate to bring down the mood.”</p><p>“Now you <em>must</em>,” Mercedes, the greatest lover of ghost stories and tragedy, said. She picked up one of the cupcakes from a plate and began biting into it. “Otherwise I might not survive.”</p><p>“Alright, alright.” Ashe laughed nervously before picking up the paper he had been eyeing through. “Let’s see… it happened…”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Years and years had passed since his fiancé’s passing, but the god’s grief would not relent. Winter everlasting had conquered northern Faerghus and closed it in a chilly embrace of snow and ice. Where people had once dwelled – Gautier, Fraldarius, and Blaiddyd territories – had been abandoned, people migrating south where spring and summer still visited.</p><p>But as he grieved – and grieved and grieved and grieved – the world marched on and changed. Adrestian Empire declared war against the scattered Kingdom of Faerghus and its people. The south-eastern Kingdom (Leicester) rebelled.</p><p>And so messengers braved the perilous trip to the frozen landscapes of the north, to their grieving guardian deity. They knew well where to find him, for the god had not moved a single step even after burying his beloved’s corpse and marked the grave with a rock that looked like it might well reach the skies above.</p><p>“Oh, the guardian of our lands! The inheritor of your Father’s will!” the messengers, cloaked in Faerghus blue and wolf furs, called out to their god over the howling winds. “Hear us and heed our call! The war is to come to our lands again, and we have need of you, o’ god of winter and ruin!”</p><p>The wind stole their words and carried them away. No answer came for a while, not from the wind nor from the god they knew must be somewhere in the white wasteland.</p><p>They had almost given up on getting an answer, when the form of a tall man emerged with a blue furred cape wrapped around him. On his hand, the man form carried the holy lance of Areadbhar, which glowed yellow and red even in the dark winter day.</p><p>The messengers cheered.</p><p>And so their god followed them to south, to war, where his sister awaited.</p><p>But the god’s heart was not in any of it. For humans had taken his beloved’s life – what reason did he have to stand his ground for them, on their behalf?</p><p>Even if they were his and his father’s people.</p><p>The final battle was fought at the Great Bridge of Myrddin. For many years to come, the Airmid River would gush with blood-red water. No man could stand to drink from it, unless one was desperate.</p><p>For years to come, many men were desperate.</p><p>On that bridge, Kingdom of Faerghus lost. Two thirds of their troops perished in that single battle, and the last third ran away at the spring goddess’ approach.</p><p>The winter god stayed on his knees, eyes unseeing as they stared up at the bright blue sky. Blood spurted from his healing wounds but he paid no mind to either them or his sister’s heavy footsteps.</p><p>The holy axe of Aymr fell hard onto the bridge, and the goddess of spring crouched down to her brother.</p><p>Were she sweeter and kinder, perhaps she would have comforted her brother. She knew well of his struggles, after all.</p><p>But the world was not kind and sweet, and neither was she.</p><p>For her victory prize, she plucked out her brother’s right eye. He screamed, much like he had screamed the eternal winter in northern Faerghus. But he had no hold over this place, no hold over his sister’s domain.</p><p>“If you refuse to use them,” she told him, “you have no need for them. Any fool could have told you that you would lose today.”</p><p>The god would return to the north staggering and bleeding, while his sister returned to Enbarr victorious and thin-lipped. The red of her clothes just a little brighter than the red that stained the Airmid River.</p><p>Glory to the Empire! For reunification was closer than it had been in centuries.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Mercedes <em>ooh</em>-ed when Ashe finished the story, though her lips curled down sadly. “Siblings fighting each other like that… it’s quite tragic.”</p><p>“Don’t you think the goddess of spring was portrayed pretty oddly in that?” Annette questioned, a deep furrow between her brows as she set down a cupcake she hadn’t even started eating yet. “She’s quite cold to her own sibling…”</p><p>“Well, it’s a Faerghus legend, isn’t it?” Felix asked with a shrug of his shoulders. “Makes sense to me it would make her out to be the devil.”</p><p>“Oh, no, it’s not. It’s actually an Adrestian tale,” Ashe corrected him. The furrow between his brows deepened as Ashe tapped at his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know why it depicts their guardian deity in such a bloodthirsty light, though.”</p><p>“Huh, go figure.”</p><p>“It sounds like it’s from the time the Empire was trying to reconquer all of Fódlan under its rule,” Annette pointed out. “That could be it.”</p><p>“Nationalistic propaganda?” Felix smiled thinly. “Most of the legends are repurposed for that. Except for the stupid romantic nonsense they feed to the public these days.”</p><p>“Felix,” Annette chastised him. “It’s not stupid! Some of the stories are actually very sweet. Even the ones about Lady Seiros and the first emperor…”</p><p>“Aren’t most of those just straight-up porn?”</p><p>Annette threw her cupcake at him. It hit Felix square in the face, and giggling burst out across the table as Felix scowled and set it down. “You are not getting this back, Annette. I hope you know that.”</p><p>“You’re a villain, Felix! A <em>villain</em>,” Annette declared, though her exasperation was betrayed by the smile pulling her lips upwards. “A cupcake villain! That’s what you are.”</p><p>“Yeah? Then I suppose I have no choice, being the <em>villain</em> that I am…” Felix took a large bite out of the cupcake while maintaining steady eye contact with increasingly flustered Annette.</p><p>“Felix, you <em>dick</em>,” she sputtered out, and once more the entire table burst into fits of laughter.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They didn’t get much studying done, but Felix couldn’t say he minded it as he made his way to the bus stop. He worked better when he was alone, and he had plenty of alone time during evenings when Sylvain was out doing whatever idiocy had crossed his mind that time.</p><p>He had just put his earbuds on when his phone started ringing.</p><p>Seeing the caller ID on the screen, Felix contemplated just not answering. But the abnormality made him shove the earbuds back into his pocket and bring the phone to his ear anyway.</p><p>His father <em>never</em> called him. They only communicated through scattered messages and stilted face-to-face talks. Either it was an emergency or – no, emergency was the only likely explanation. Felix grit his teeth and ground out, “Hey.”</p><p>“You picked up.” His father had the gall to sound surprised. Tired, as always, but surprised.</p><p>“You never call me,” Felix pointed out. He had reached the bus stop, and he inspected the schedule plastered on the flimsy glass wall of the flimsy structure. Ten minutes till the next one. “Did something happen at the hospital?”</p><p>“No, no,” his father reassured him wearily. “I have a day off.”</p><p>“Then what’s up?” Felix grimaced and turned away from the bus schedule. He stayed under the canopy after a look at the rapidly graying sky. “If it’s about uncle, just spit it out.”</p><p>“Theo is doing just fine,” the old man said with a little sigh. “I was actually wondering about the man you brought over when you were visiting, Felix.”</p><p>“Dimitri? What about him?” Felix’s shoulders tensed at the mention, and his lips pressed thin. His last received text message was from Dimitri, right before Felix had headed off to his study session.</p><p>“I have the strangest feeling I have met him before, a long time ago,” the old man said slowly, and Felix could picture the face he had to be making perfectly. “I just cannot imagine where. Do you remember? Was he in your class in the first grade?”</p><p>Felix snorted. “I would remember a guy like him being in my class. Any of them.”</p><p>Felix’s elementary school had been tiny, under ten students per class. First grade, in its entirety, had been six students. Second grade the same. In third glass, a new face had moved in and upped the number to seven. Sylvain had been two classes above Felix, but in the same school until the old man had moved the Fraldariuses to Fhirdiad when Felix started fifth grade. Sylvain started middle school at that point, though, so they would have been separated anyway.</p><p>“I suppose,” Felix’s father said with the same pensive tone he took whenever he was wracking his brain cells for something. He fell silent, and Felix waited. He continued slowly, “I cannot shake the feeling that I have met him before, though. How strange.”</p><p>“Have you been taking your meds?” Felix asked.</p><p>The hesitance over the line spoke volumes louder than any words would have.</p><p>“For fuck’s sake.” Felix sighed. “Just eat your meds and go nap.”</p><p>“Felix.”</p><p>Felix’s jaw snapped shut at the firm tone the old man used with him.</p><p>“I am certain I have met your Dimitri before, but…” A sigh. An awkward pause. Felix could feel the incoming embarrassment in the air. The old man’s voice softened into a whisper as he said, “I’m glad you’re making new friends, Felix.”</p><p>“Goodbye,” Felix said curtly before hanging up the call, face aflame and gloved fingers curling tightly around the phone. It wasn’t the first time his father told him that, even regarding Dimitri, but somehow it embarrassed Felix more than it had the first time around.</p><p>He nearly missed the damn bus.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next up is Sylvain's POV. That... is going to be something, huh. September 13th! I'm going to keep updating every other week, since I have like four other fic projects I'm working on asides from this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. phantom touch</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Sylvain always does stupid shit just to shake off the ghosts at his shoulders.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter warnings: miklan mention, and unhealthy use of alcohol etc.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In a time long lost, a god was born to this world. He was as feeble as human baby, yet a thousand times more durable, unkillable by the things that were likely to snuff out a babe’s life. He – for the human concept of this god was incurably similar to a man – cried as babes did, was fed like babes were, but unlike human children, his moods brought forth snowfall and storms.</p><p>For this young god, a spirit was assigned to guard him.</p><p>The fox spirit wasn’t very old himself. As young spirits tended to, he was a mischievous little thing, after everything and anything that felt good. That wasn’t to say he didn’t take his duty seriously. Between every joke and mischievous nip at the little god’s fingers, the fox watched over him and witnessed how he grew and learned the art of speech and walk.</p><p>The first word the little winter god ever spoke was the fox spirit’s name – but it was a secret the spirit kept to himself, close to his heart, and so the rest of the gods thought little Mitya’s first word was <em>mama</em>, said softly and sweetly.</p><p>At every sunset the spirit curled around the young god and put his fiery red tail over the child. The little god’s fingers gripped it until sleep claimed him.</p><p>The fox would watch over him until sunrise was at the gods’ doors again.</p><p>From dawn till dusk and from dusk till dawn, the fox was by his side, vigilant behind a careless façade. And the child god loved him dearly, with the same seriousness as human children loved the toys they slept with.</p><p>And the fox loved him too, with the dedication of an older brother.</p><p>Sly creatures, people said of them, but what choice did foxes have in a world that hunted them for fur and sport? This fox counted himself lucky, as he had friends to use his wits for.</p><p>He nuzzled against the little god, who giggled in his sleep.</p><p>A delightful little noise in the vast crystal castle that was home.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sylvain stared at the message for at least five minutes, trying to make any sense of it. The message was perfectly correct grammar-wise, and even the words themselves should make sense. But something in Sylvain’s brain refused them. It could not be happening <em>now</em>. Well. It <em>wasn’t</em> happening now, but in a few weeks it would, and Sylvain felt nauseous just thinking about it. His father intended to make him sit through the process, he knew.</p><p>The case against Miklan was firm.</p><p>But who in their goddess-damned minds had thought it fine to let his father be the one to prosecute him? Wasn’t it <em>illegal</em> for a prosecutor to work in a case with so much personal history involved?</p><p>Sylvain swallowed the lump in his throat. Swallowed again for good measure and ran shaking fingers through his purposely messed hair. He was supposed to be on a date right now. But he couldn’t. Which was ridiculous, right? He was the stupid rich playboy that drank, smoked, and sexted through worse things than a text message from his father. According to this image of himself, Sylvain shouldn’t be bothered by what happened to Miklan.</p><p>Yet there he was, at the kitchen table in his and Felix’s student apartment, gawking at his phone like the words would somehow transform into something else if he kept at it.</p><p>His battery was at 50. It wouldn’t last till morning if he left now. Sylvain turned it off with shaking fingers before retreating into his room and grabbing a sweater. Whenever he arrived late, he would be either forgiven or slapped across the face. His life had no in-betweens.</p><p>Inhale. Exhale. </p><p>Then he turned his phone on again and called Dimitri. Tapped his free hand’s fingers on the table surface and ignored the cold coffee in his mug. His head hurt enough without more caffeine. Dimitri’s adorable confusion about everything would put it at ease.</p><p>Or perhaps Sylvain just felt like picking a fight.</p><p> <em>Beep-beep-beep</em> intoned the phone before Dimitri picked up, breathless and confused when he said, “Sylvain?”</p><p>“<em>Bzzzzt</em>,” Sylvain said mirthlessly. “Wrong answer. One of these days you gotta start pretending we don’t know each other. Preferably before Felix introduces us.”</p><p>Dimitri paused at that. Half a minute passed before Dimitri asked with a small voice, “Do you think he intends to?”</p><p>The stupid hopeful tone in the question made Sylvain sigh and his heart throb. A part of him didn’t think it was fair that Dimitri had this chance. Sylvain closed his eyes, and the image of Glenn formed immediately in all his sharp-eyed glory. His lungs ached, not just from the cigarette smoke he had been inhaling for the past decade now.</p><p>It wasn’t fair. In his childhood, Miklan made it difficult to breathe; now, it was the memories of Glenn that choked him up. And Miklan, again. Miklan was good at that. Glenn too, but in his case it was unintentional.</p><p>Fates dictated that Glenn would never stay. At least Sylvain suffered from Miklan only in this lifetime.</p><p>“Probably,” Sylvain said, because even after everything he couldn’t bring himself to be cruel to Dimitri. “He replies to your texts, doesn’t he? Felix gets clingy to people he knows won’t be affected by what comes out his mouth. ‘Sides, he knows you and Ingrid are friends, just like they are mine. Would make sense to turn the threesome into a foursome, yeah?”</p><p>On the other end of the call, Dimitri wheezed.</p><p>Sylvain raised an eyebrow. Who had taught Dimitri the concept of an orgy? He needed to give them a congratulatory slap on the back. To gods, modern sex ed leaned towards a mystery. Not that some of them weren’t into the “filth” humans allegedly invented. “You okay in there, buddy? Got something stuck in your throat?”</p><p>“When?” Dimitri asked.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“When do you think it’ll happen?” Dimitri clarified, with painful hope lifting his voice. It broke as soon as Dimitri spoke more, words crashing together like a car accident. “I miss—I don’t—I am scared, Sylvain.”</p><p>Sylvain’s fingers stopped tapping against the table.</p><p>Dimitri used to be angry.</p><p>Every time he called Sylvain now, he only sounded subtly defeated, in the way Sylvain’s father sounded after a long trial that hadn’t gone according to his plans. In the way Miklan had looked after each day he came home from the boarding school he had been sent off to while Sylvain and Felix went to one bordering their home territories. Back when Sylvain’s education didn’t matter that much.</p><p>Sylvain had always hated the holidays.</p><p>“Scared?” He smiled. It was a mean little thing, even though he didn’t mean it to happen. “What for? He’s still talking to you, isn’t he?”</p><p>Glenn wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Sylvain had remembered the important things too late – and now he only wanted to forget again.</p><p>Memory didn’t work at one’s will, however. Alcohol, sex, cigarettes only removed the pain of remembering for a few hours at most. It was still the most effective medicine Sylvain had found to his “psychological problems” as his last boyfriend called them. Or was it a girlfriend? A nonbinary pal?</p><p>Funny how the things that should matter in the present slipped off his mind so easily, and the things he could do nothing about stayed. It was like rooming with an infestation of termites and having no way to call for people to terminate them.</p><p>Dimitri sighed before saying, “Yes, I suppose I am being silly.”</p><p>“Cheer up, buddy,” Sylvain said with the misguided confidence of a liar. “I gotta go now, but I’m sure I’ll be seeing you whenever Felix brings you home to get the best friend’s approval.”</p><p>Sylvain hung up before Dimitri could say another word and turned the phone off in the same breath. Why had he called Dimitri to begin with? He had no clue. It certainly hadn’t made either of them feel better.</p><p>Glenn would be disappointed to see him treat Dimitri like this, but a dead person really didn’t have any right to comment on the matters of the living. That was what Felix would say, at least.</p><p>Sylvain pulled the sweater on, took his winter jacket, and left the apartment twenty minutes before Felix would arrive home exhausted and weary.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sylvain didn’t really hate people anymore. Not in the same exhausting way Ingrid did. She bottled it all up below a serious demeanor and polite smiles, while Sylvain had never really stopped taking it out on people he didn’t know.</p><p>(And even on some that he did know, Sylvain realized with a pang of guilt as he fiddled with the phone in his pocket. Even on those that weren’t exactly people.)</p><p>He didn’t really hate them – but once a bad habit formed, rooting it away took more than Sylvain as a person had. Even Felix hadn’t gotten him to quit smoking, and that was with <em>several</em> packs of cigarettes mysteriously disappearing into the trash can all cut up.</p><p>And that was why Sylvain was at the party tonight after his date had smacked him on the cheek and yelled at him for a bit before taking off somewhere Sylvain didn’t really care to follow.</p><p>Out of many bad habits and out of both old and new heartaches.</p><p>(To ignore Miklan’s presence in his head. To forget Dimitri for a little bit; to forget his own guilt that his anger at Dimitri made him feel. After all this time, and after everything Dimitri had gone through, it wasn’t fair.</p><p>How to forgive without forgetting, that was the question.)</p><p>The apartment was half-full with other university students and some drop-outs with connections and access to more than just cheap beer sitting in the supermarket shelves. Music boomed from the stereos, a background noise that quickly drowned under chatter and crass jokes as Sylvain ventured further in. A student or two stopped him every now and then, either to thank him for setting something up for them or to curse him for his lame pick-up line suggestions that had gotten a boot thrown at their face.</p><p>Literally a boot to the face. Sylvain kind of wished he had been there to see it, but then he remembered the time a girl in high school had stabbed a fork in his cheek. The memory alone made him cringe with pain that had long since vanished.</p><p>He found the cheap beer and hard liquor in the kitchen and poured himself a bit of Smirnoff. Drank it in one go. Vodka always dulled the edged thoughts in his head.</p><p>He danced in the living room with a young woman. She had blue eyes and sharper nails that dug into his shoulder like a cat’s claws. Sylvain’s smile grew taut, strained. Even with alcohol buzzing in his head, he felt so tired.</p><p>As if his battery was at 50% and rapidly running out. Too much of his energy went into keeping Miklan out of his mind.</p><p>Afterwards Sylvain retreated to the apartment’s balcony to smoke, hands trembling as he lit up the cigarette between his fingers. The cold night stirred his muddled mind, and the burn of nicotine relieved some of the tension that had made its home in Sylvain’s chest. Felix called it masochistic and suicidal, and Sylvain had never really protested that judgment.</p><p>He just wasn’t planning on stopping, either.</p><p>He didn’t turn to look to his side when someone leaned on the balcony railing close by. Sylvain smiled and took the cigarette between his fingers, saying, “It’s a beautiful night to meet a stranger, ain’t it?”</p><p>An amused voice responded: “Not as much a stranger as you undoubtedly hope me to be, fox.”</p><p>The cigarette fell down, all the way to the ground three balconies below. Sylvain didn’t notice, as his head had swiveled around to make eye contact with the person the familiar voice belonged to.</p><p>Sylvain’s heart stopped, not for the first time on that day.</p><p>“Yuri,” he said, stunned and incoherent as he took in the sight beside him. “Woah, I didn’t expect to meet <em>you</em> of all people at a college party.”</p><p>Yuri’s mouth pulled into a tight smile at that. The moonlight made his violet hair glow. Shadows danced over his face, over his eyes, leaving his expression inscrutable. “So you <em>do </em>remember me. When did that happen, I wonder?”</p><p>Sylvain nearly answered truthfully, but the words were too heavy to say out loud. So instead he ended up saying, with an awkward chuckle and a wink, “When I looked into your eyes just now, beautiful.”</p><p>Yuri – for it had to be Yuri, that lilting yet intense voice could belong to no other – laughed, mocking him. “You haven’t changed much after all these years, have you? Still as incorrigible as ever.”</p><p>A short pause. Yuri’s head tilted down as he gazed at the railing. Something resigned lingered in the gesture, and Sylvain’s heart paused again. “Still as bad a liar as ever, too.”</p><p>“Liar? You wound me.” Sylvain softened his smile, though it hurt on his face. “You know me better than—”</p><p>“It’s <em>because</em> I know you so well that I don’t buy into your bullshit,” Yuri interjected. Mild anger colored his voice, even though he didn’t look in Sylvain’s direction. The lights from inside the apartment made his hair glow differently than the moon, and Sylvain studied the warm glow of it.</p><p>Would it feel the same as it had the last time he brushed his fingers along the violet hair?</p><p>“You remembered it after he died, didn’t you?” Yuri ventured on with a nearly bored sound, though Sylvain caught the sharp side glance Yuri threw at him. “Your Glenn.”</p><p>The name was like a sucker punch to the gut, and Sylvain blinked several times before he could muster up a reply. “Why does it matter when I remembered?” he asked, the half-hearted smile dying on his lips. “I’d rather if I hadn’t, but there’s not much to do about it.”</p><p>Yuri’s silence spoke more than any words could, but louder still was the hard stare he gave Sylvain.</p><p>“I should have known,” he said in the end. A bitter laugh escaped him, and Yuri ran a hand through his long, beautiful hair. “Waiting for you was a fool’s task, and I don’t normally partake in those. I guess I was wrong about you.”</p><p>Wait—</p><p>“Wait,” Sylvain said, almost reached his hand out to Yuri, who had pushed himself away from the railing. “What does that mean—”</p><p>“A bird is a fickle, scared little thing, you know,” Yuri said, thick sarcasm laced in each word. But a hint of painful sincerity shone through when Yuri looked at him, lips curling downwards with despondency. “Take the wrong step, and you’ll scare it off. They have to protect themselves from being stepped on, fox. A big thing like you? You keep stomping on hearts you do not even see.”</p><p>Yuri vanished as soon as he had said that.</p><p>In his place, a little mockingbird fluffed up its feathers before taking off into the cold Fhirdiad night. Sylvain could do nothing but watch its flight in silence, heartbeat as loud as Ailell’s volcanoes in his ears.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Sylvain made it back home – what he thought as home now more than ever – a little after four am. The darkness that surrounded him was good, welcome even, but even more welcomed was the warmth inside the apartment.</p><p>He managed to kick his shoes off after the third stumble and by that point he was sure he had woken Felix up. Any time now, Felix would get up to yell his ears off and gain them another complaint from their neighbors.</p><p>It was Sylvain’s fault, really. As most things in life seemed to be, be it in the past, present, or future. Sylvain rubbed his face with the sleeve of his jacket and held back the sniffle he knew was coming on. Had he drunk too much? He didn’t usually get so emotional after a night out.</p><p>(He knew well why he was like this, but thinking about Yuri did nothing but agitate his already frayed nerves.)</p><p>Sylvain sniffled despite his best efforts to not do that, and his jacket sleeve dampened with salty tears even as he furiously tried to keep them in.</p><p>Miklan had never liked his tears.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Once upon a time, when the land was still young and human population kinder to nature, a young fairy prince met with a young fox spirit.</p><p>The prince’s name was Glenn, and he was the oldest of two sons to the king that ruled the fae of this land.</p><p>It was not their first meeting, of course. For nearly as long as the prince had known of the little god of winter, he had also known of the fox spirit that guarded their little deity when his parents could not.</p><p>They walked through the fairies’ enchanted forest that day a long time ago. It was late spring, and only then the forest had bloomed into its full green radiance. Wildflowers peeked out behind every stone and root, and the moss was soft and damp under the fox’s paws.</p><p>And Glenn, the fairy prince, was a sight just as beautiful. He walked tall and proud, and his green wings glowed translucent in the sunlight the trees filtered. The fox looked up at them in wonder, at the wings and the backless tunic that fit Glenn so well.</p><p>No less wondrous were the wind runes that glowed green on the fairy’s skin. It was the color of fairy gold and Glenn’s magic.</p><p>Glenn’s hair swished around in its tight ponytail, and the fox had an urge to jump for it, to play with the wavy curls that looked so enticingly soft.</p><p>He didn’t. For all his spontaneous actions, the fox could not approach the eldest fae prince with the same easiness he did his little brother.</p><p>Fee was said to be the fairest of the fae royals, but to the fox’s eyes and nose it was Glenn.</p><p>He knew his place in the hierarchy ladder. He had no real chance to ever have Glenn’s favor, so he was happy for these walks Glenn took him to on occasion.</p><p>When Glenn slowed down and let the fox come to his side, the spirit started at the feeling of long fingers reaching down into his fur. Looking up, he saw Glenn crouching down, his eyes as gentle as his fingers.</p><p>“We have arrived, Sylv,” Glenn said. His usually so narrow and serious eyes squinted with his smile, and that, in combination with the nickname the prince had given him, made the fox spirit shiver. And so he turned his head away from the fairy’s ethereal face and took in their new surroundings.</p><p>The forest had thinned out from the way of a secret beach that lined a small lake – so small one could clearly see where it ended on the horizon. The trees on the opposite side stood tall and dark, barely swaying in the passing wind. The lake was as blue as the spring sky itself, and the fox hadn’t seen anything like it before.</p><p>Never had there been a bluer lake; never had he been taken to a lakeside beach by someone he cherished before.</p><p>The fox unknowingly held his breath so long his form changed to that of a human’s: a tall, ginger-haired man, who the fairy now had to look up to. Glenn’s eyes twinkled like a pair of stars when Sylvain - for that was the full name Glenn had bestowed upon him to replace the old loveless one - looked into them. </p><p>“So startled you could not help but take your human form, eh?” Glenn’s mouth twisted into a smirk, and his laugh was as glad as it was teasing. His hand reached up to Sylvain’s neck, palm settling protectively against the fox’s racing pulse. “Come on, Sylv. I want to spend a little time with you.”</p><p>There was hierarchy to this world – the fae, the gods, even humans – but the firstborn son of the revered King Achille had never cared too much for it. He was loyal to his father and the gods, but he never let respect for someone keep himself from living truly as he wished.</p><p>Perhaps Sylvain was someone Glenn wanted in his life so he could go on doing just that.</p><p>The thought – bold and arrogant as it was – sped Sylvain’s heartbeat up again as he followed Glenn to the lakeside beach and to the rocks that reached into the water and land both.</p><p>Glenn sat down on one of the rocks and gestured for Sylvain to sit beside him. Sylvain did, and for a moment the runes on Glenn’s skin brightened into a lighter, more joyful shade of green. Glenn was always breathtaking – as fae in general were – but now Sylvain found it even harder to tear his eyes away.</p><p>Enchanted.</p><p>Yes, he was enchanted.</p><p>Glenn looked to the lake, at the vast expanse of water. Forest surrounded them from a distance, and birds were quiet. Only the sound of water lapping against the rocks they sat on. The fox in Sylvain didn’t enjoy silence very much, but the human part of him – that grew and grew as he watched humans spread around the lands Mitya would watch over eventually – thought it romantic.</p><p>To be able to simply sit and spend time with the being you loved? Sublime. Sylvain thought it then, and in the distant future he would again discover the joys of it.</p><p>But even then, Sylvain couldn’t keep his mouth shut for too long before the urge to speak overcame him.</p><p>“Your father,” he said, as tactful as the morning birds were to those still asleep, “I heard he’s—”</p><p>Glenn shushed the spirit by taking his hand in his. Glenn’s hand was hard, burned from magic, but behind the firm façade Glenn’s hold was gentle, kind.</p><p>Older brothers learn kindness and protectiveness sometime after their little siblings are born, Glenn told him once. <em>They never forget it after they learn it,</em> Glenn had added with a softer look that he rarely showed to Fee or Mitya.</p><p>“You know better than to listen to rumors with ill intent behind them,” Glenn said now, taking that tone all big brothers did when scolding someone younger, even if it was not their little sibling. “Father is well and stubborn enough to not die of a broken heart. Why should his flightless wing drive him to death now, when he has survived so long?”</p><p>Glenn threw a grin at him, so confident and reassured that it took Sylvain’s breath away. His hand slipped out of Sylvain’s, and Glenn’s fingers slipped the fallen strands of midnight blue hair back behind his long, narrow ear. “You’re a hundred years too early to be worrying about <em>my</em> parent, Sylv.”</p><p>Sylvain couldn’t help but smile and laugh in spite of his worries. Rumors were hardly ever without any cause, after all, even if they twisted the original truth into a nasty lie.</p><p>He dipped his feet into the lake and shivered at the cold that spread through them. Beside him, sunlight caught onto Glenn’s wings and hair. The already dark strands looked nearly black, while the wings glowed with darker hues of green and speckles of blue. Only a little more color, and Glenn would cast rainbows through the fluttering wings.</p><p>Sylvain knew his admiration was more than a little strange and more than a little impossible. He was just a—not even a full spirit, but half a human and half a sprite. Something to be abhorred among beings that cherished pure, untainted blood.</p><p>His hand shook as it reached out to hold Glenn’s again.</p><p>He met with no resistance, and his fingers slipped between the fairy’s just like that, as easy as breathing.</p><p>And when Glenn leaned in to kiss his lips, Sylvain had never felt more alive.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>chapter 8 will be faerghus four focused! chaos. coming to ur local ao3 on sept 27th</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. reunited again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Felix invites Dimitri (and Ingrid) over. Chaos and family talk happen.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red Wolf Moon was well on its way to the finish line when Felix gave in and invited Dimitri over one Saturday afternoon. He invited Ingrid too just to make sure Dimitri wouldn’t get the wrong idea about it.</p><p>(Or to keep himself from getting the wrong idea.)</p><p>Sylvain was still sleeping away his sleep debt from the previous week when Dimitri and Ingrid arrived. “We came together,” Ingrid explained, rolling her car keys around her finger. “Might as well save some gas and parking lot space, right?”</p><p>An economic decision as usual for her. Dimitri didn’t seem too bothered. “No one likes my driving,” he said, awkwardly gesturing at his eyepatch. “Probably because of… well, you know.”</p><p>“People like Felix’s driving even less,” Ingrid said, earning a fierce scowl from Felix.</p><p>“What’s <em>that</em> supposed to mean?”</p><p>“Road rage, Felix. You have it. Though in your case, I guess it’s only rage.” Ingrid bit at her lip, trying to suppress a smile and failing to do so.</p><p>“That’s coming from the queen of road rage herself,” Felix huffed and rolled his eyes even as he stepped out of the way to let Ingrid and Dimitri take off their shoes and close the door. “I am never stepping into your car again.”</p><p>“It’s not my fault bad drivers exist,” Ingrid said defensively, tugging off the woolen cap on her head especially carefully before taking off her jacket and dodging Dimitri. Ingrid looked around then, only then seeming to notice something off.</p><p>“Where’s Sylvain?” she asked with the voice of someone that expected the worst.</p><p>“Asleep,” Felix said as he followed her into the small kitchen. Ingrid had left a bag of takeout boxes on the table, and they were still warm. “He came back ridiculously late as usual.”</p><p>Ingrid shook her head before sighing and glancing to the door she and Felix had passed. “Is his door open as usual? I’m not going to let him waste the food I got for him just because he’s hungover and sleep-deprived.”</p><p>“Should be,” Felix said. “Wouldn’t do that if I were you, though. He’s started bringing them home this semester.”</p><p>Dimitri came to the kitchen then, looking like a mess with his tousled, uncombed hair and dark bags under his one visible eye. Felix bit back the question that threatened to slip out and looked back to Ingrid, who was already rolling her sleeves up and clearly preparing herself to give Sylvain another scolding.</p><p>Felix’s attention trailed back to Dimitri again when the man went to the kitchen windows.</p><p>“Snowdrops?” Dimitri murmured softly, with wonder, as he stared down at the flowers on the windowsill. “They’re not supposed to bloom yet, are they?”</p><p>“Take good care of them, and they can manage,” Felix said. “No big deal.”</p><p>Dimitri looked at him then, with a slow smile spreading over his mouth. “I never manage to take care of any plants without my friend’s help,” he said. “It’s no small task to care for a living thing, be it a plant or an animal.”</p><p>“You’re making it into a bigger thing than it is,” Felix said, fighting down the uncomfortable delight at the praise. Ingrid slammed Sylvain’s door open in the background, the sound of it making Dimitri flinch and grimace.</p><p>“Fee—<em>Felix</em>, it still speaks of patience that I don’t have.” Dimitri’s mouth lifted into a self-deprecating smile that Felix wanted to punch off the face it hardly fit. “Even the cacti die under my care.”</p><p>“You probably water those too much in that case.”</p><p>“Maybe,” Dimitri allowed, but before he could say anything else – and by the gods, he looked like he was going to – Sylvain’s miserable groans interrupted their moment, with Ingrid’s harder voice ringing over the complaints in the same way church bells rang over the noise of traffic on Sundays.</p><p>Felix almost felt bad for Sylvain. Almost.</p><p>That flicker of emotion died when Sylvain emerged from his room half-naked, with only his boxers on, and his face looking like it had met with an unfortunate brick wall on his way home last night. More than likely someone’s pissed off boyfriend (or girlfriend, that happened too) had decided to mold his face into a whole new shape and done a pretty good job at it, too.</p><p>“G’morning,” Sylvain mumbled and rubbed at his eyes, only to flinch when his palm pressed against the bruise high on his cheek. Sylvain continued more sarcastically as he headed off to the bathroom, “Thanks for waking me up, Ing. It’s not like it’s Saturday and I’m allowed to sleep in.”</p><p>Ingrid emerged from his room with a thin, tight smile on her face. Her words were just as sarcastic as she called out after him: “And it’s not like you have been skipping class for an entire week now.”</p><p>Sylvain shut the bathroom door behind him and didn’t answer, leaving Ingrid behind to shake her head in dismay.</p><p>Dimitri, on the other hand, looked awkward with his much too serious expression and furrowed brows. “Perhaps we should have let him sleep a little longer…”</p><p>“Nah,” Felix said. He had no pity for Sylvain in these instances. “He keeps waking me up at obscene times when he comes back from partying, anyway. And we were going to use his television regardless.”</p><p>“Felix doesn’t have a television in his own room… and he’s protective as hell over his laptop,” Ingrid piped in. “Unlike him, Sylvain doesn’t feel bad about wasting his father’s money to treat himself.”</p><p>“It’s about the principle of it,” Felix huffed at her. “I don’t need his money.”</p><p>“Instead you work twice a week at the cash register in a supermarket with that friendly face of yours,” Ingrid said and rolled her eyes. “I’m surprised they haven’t fired you yet.”</p><p>“Ugh, shut up,” Felix said. “Sylvain can waste his Gautier money however he damn pleases, but don’t make it seem like he’s using it for <em>good</em>.”</p><p>“Oh, I agree that he’s wasting it on wrong things, don’t get me wrong.” Ingrid’s eyes glazed over as her mind went into a familiar, predictable direction. “Think about all the spices and foods he could try—but instead he’s using it all on—”</p><p>Dimitri’s mutter interjected her before Ingrid could go on her usual ramble about all the southern foods she had yet to try. “Gautier,” he said, his brows even more knitted than before. “I feel like I’ve heard the name before.”</p><p>“Sylvain’s father is a bigshot prosecutor, so yeah,” Felix said. “You probably have.”</p><p>The name appeared in the news at least every month or so. Whenever he took on a big case. Sylvain always changed the channel when the news of his father came in on television.</p><p>“Yes,” Dimitri said slowly. The wrinkles on his brow deepened, and his lips curled down in concern. “I think I saw his name in news recently… Something about… prosecuting his own son?”</p><p>Felix’s heart chilled at that. “…What?”</p><p>Ingrid, just as incredulous, sat down. “Are you certain you heard correctly, Dimitri?”</p><p>A flushing noise came from the bathroom, shortly followed by the sound of running water. Felix looked back to the door Sylvain would emerge from any moment now.</p><p>“I am certain,” Dimitri confirmed. He sounded troubled, as if he didn’t know how appropriate this topic was. Felix bit back a sigh. If only he knew how inappropriate it was, he would have kept his mouth shut, Felix was sure of that. Dimitri continued, “The son’s name wasn’t Sylvain, so I didn’t connect him with Felix’s roommate…”</p><p>The bathroom door opened, and Dimitri fell silent as Sylvain joined them around the table, still wearing nothing but his boxers and looking only barely more alive than five minutes ago. Dimitri had clamped his mouth shut, and Ingrid didn’t quite look up from the table surface, and Sylvain’s expression fell into confusion before a smile twisted on his lips again. “What’s with the sudden silence, huh? When you woke me up so rudely…”</p><p>“Your dad,” Felix said with about as much tact as he usually had. There really was no point in beating around the bush with Sylvain. Felix flexed his fingers slowly against his elbow, feeling the electric tingle that came up especially easily when he was upset. “He’s prosecuting Miklan, apparently.”</p><p>“…Oh. So it made the news finally, did it?” Sylvain’s smile strained to stay on his mouth as he went to inspect the boxes Ingrid had left on the table. “I figured he’d have made it public the moment he told me about it, but I guess he didn’t. Ooh, takeout again, Ing? You reaaaaally gotta start eating more healthier stuff.”</p><p>“Sylvain,” Ingrid started, but she didn’t know how to continue and so her voice faded off, leaving only a discomforted look on her face.</p><p>She didn’t know half the shit Miklan did to him, but she knew enough. Felix stared at Sylvain hard even as Sylvain avoided looking at him.</p><p>Sylvain pointed at Dimitri, fake cheer making its way into his voice when he talked to Felix, “Is this your boy toy, Felix? So glad you’re finally introducing us. I’m the most charming roommate Felix has ever had—”</p><p>“—the <em>only</em> roommate I’ve ever had, and that’s not the point—”</p><p>“—Sylvain Jose Gautier, at your service,” Sylvain finished with a saucy wink that made Felix simultaneously want to throw up and punch Sylvain. Maybe throw up on Sylvain after punching him.</p><p>“I’m Dimitri,” Dimitri said awkwardly, extending his hand out and avoiding eye contact with Sylvain. Felix honestly could not blame him. “Dimitri Alexandre B—”</p><p>“D-A-B,” Sylvain interrupted him and laughed. “Your name’s a meme, dude.”</p><p>Dimitri’s brows furrowed with sincere confusion. “What’s a meme?”</p><p>Sylvain and Ingrid wheezed. Felix wasn’t surprised but had to bite back a smile nevertheless. Dimitri had told him he didn’t have a laptop of his own and did all his internet-related work on campus when he could. His brick of a phone didn’t seem to have internet connection either.</p><p>“Felix, we must fix your boyfriend’s lack of popular culture knowledge,” Sylvain declared the moment he plopped down on the chair beside Ingrid’s, Miklan all but forgotten by now. “This just won’t do.”</p><p>“He’s not my boyfriend.”</p><p>“So, he’s free real estate, then?”</p><p>Dimitri’s brows furrowed further. “I’m not a piece of landmass you can erect a house on, Sylvain.”</p><p>Sylvain nearly dropped the takeout box he had grabbed as another fit of laughter overtook him. Felix wished he’d choke. “He’s—fuck, Felix—he’s so unintentionally hilarious—I think I’m going to die—”</p><p>“Die, then. Set me free.”</p><p>“Ow, Felix! That stings.” Sylvain dropped his face on top of the takeout box before him and moaned miserably. “My dearest friend, so happy to see me go! How sad.” Sylvain sniffed. “Oh. Ing, did you actually get Leicester food this time? Bless your beautiful—”</p><p>“Finish that sentence, and I <em>will</em> steal your food.”</p><p>“—mind, that’s all I was gonna say, Ingrid. Come on, you know me better than that to think that I—”</p><p>Still bickering and laughing, the four of them settled around the table to eat, Sylvain still mostly naked and his hair even more of a disaster than usual. The day brightened outside a little bit, though sun stayed hidden beneath a thick layer of clouds. Light snowfall started sometime during the meal, the flakes descending calmly to cover more of the semi-forested ground.</p><p>Snowdrops on the windowsill looked a little perkier than they had in a while, too, for which Felix was glad. Despite what he had said to Dimitri earlier, they were difficult to keep alive outside their season and without a dedicated space for them. Sylvain often teased him about having a green thumb, but other flowers died too fast under Felix’s care for that to be true.</p><p>Ashe did give good advice, though.</p><p>In the middle of their meal, Dimitri’s phone went off in the most basic ringtone Felix had ever heard and it was loud enough to make all four around to table to nearly swallow their food down the wrong way.</p><p>Dimitri fumbled but got his phone out of his pant pocket, flinching when he looked at the caller. “My apologies,” he said and smiled sadly at the three of them. “I need to take this call. Outside.”</p><p>“Who is it?” Ingrid asked, worry evident in her voice and face.</p><p>“My uncle,” Dimitri said dismissively as he stood up. The ringtone only grew louder, and he hurried off without further explanations. Soon, the outdoor shut behind him, and the ringtone stopped.</p><p>Felix stared after him with furrowed brows, and so did Ingrid and Sylvain.</p><p>“You think he’ll be okay?” Sylvain asked slowly, cautiously twirling a fork near his lip. “Doesn’t seem like a pleasant call.”</p><p>“Why do you think that?” Felix asked, but inwardly he agreed. Dimitri’s flinch had been subtle but definitely there. Felix resumed eating, though his eyes flitted back to where Dimitri had disappeared to mere moments ago.</p><p>Ingrid answered for Sylvain, who wouldn’t have known anything about Dimitri to speculate. “His and his uncle’s relationship… well, uncles’, really… has never been the best,” she said slowly, a little muffled as she shoved more food into her mouth. “It only worsened after… well. After everything.”</p><p>“Uncles?” Felix raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“His uncle and his sister’s uncle,” Ingrid said, as if that was enough of an explanation and definitely didn’t send new questions blooming in Felix’s head. She fiddled with her cutlery, for once losing her seemingly endless appetite. Then she spoke again, quieter than Felix had ever heard her. “They’re both pretty terrible to Dimitri, but his paternal uncle is worse.”</p><p>“Shitty family situations all around,” Sylvain said way too lightly, but his fingers lay stiff against the fork in his hand. “Could toast to that.”</p><p>“Sylvain,” Ingrid scolded, her concern evident as her eyes flicked to the front door. “Now’s not the time for jokes.”</p><p>“What’s a life without a badly timed joke every now and then?”</p><p>“You only ever have bad timing.”</p><p>Felix stopped paying attention to his two bickering friends and kept on eating, listening hard for any sound of the door opening and Dimitri slipping in.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Once out the door, Dimitri took in a sharp breath to prepare himself and answered the call.</p><p>“Hello, Uncle Rufus,” he said and immediately hated the sound of his own voice so meek. But he could not help it – even uttering the name of his sole remaining family member from his father’s side made his chest grow cold and numb.</p><p>Dimitri could forget – and had forgotten – many things, but he could never forget the things he had seen and heard his uncle do. Or not do. Dimitri twitched at the memory of his uncle’s absence in the one moment in his life when he needed him to be there for him.</p><p>There were things he could forgive – and had forgiven – his uncle for.</p><p>But this could never be one of those.</p><p>“Dimitri,” his uncle began with his drawling voice that exuded boredom. Like talking to Dimitri wasn’t worth the time and effort Rufus Blaiddyd was putting into it. Dimitri bit at his lip and straightened his back. Snow came down faster around him, and wind picked up. It nipped at his bare fingers, but Dimitri hardly noticed.</p><p>His uncle continued, “You’ve been off on your travels for quite some time now. I heard you left Enbarr. Were you not supposed to return home from there, hm?”</p><p>“I—enjoy Fhirdiad, as you know, uncle.” Dimitri thought about Felix. The university. Flayn’s cheery lectures that made him relive things he had nearly forgotten. Ingrid and Sylvain. The few contacts Khalid had among the student populace, too. It had been Khalid that told him Felix attended the University of Fhirdiad.</p><p>That Fee was alive again.</p><p>His uncle mustn’t find out, and so Dimitri forced himself to smile. “Do you have need of me?”</p><p>“Don’t get cocky now, little one. We know better than to rely on you.”</p><p>The words stung, even after all the time that had passed since the first time his uncle first uttered them.</p><p><em>Unreliable</em>. Dimitri knew it to be true, and yet that one word wounded him almost as much as the loneliness and isolation of the past had.</p><p>Dimitri’s hands shook, but he refused to let it carry into his voice. “Of course,” he said. “Forgive my insolence.”</p><p>He didn’t know how Edelgard did it. How she held herself together so well despite everything that had come and gone. Dimitri at times envied her composure and ability to withstand, but he knew it came at a price.</p><p>Everything did, after all.</p><p>“You are forgiven,” his uncle said with the voice of someone too keen on thinking themselves magnanimous. “How odd that you should be in Fhirdiad now, though. As far as I know, you used to avoid the city as much as you could, dear nephew.”</p><p>“Times change, uncle,” Dimitri said respectfully. “I am overcoming my grievances little by little, and this city is a good starting place for that.”</p><p>“That is good news, then.” Rufus Blaiddyd sounded like he was smiling at Dimitri’s expense. “But do remember you still have duties as one of us, little one. Your father would be displeased to find you turning your back on them. On your family.”</p><p>“I will keep your words in mind,” Dimitri promised stiffly. Cold seeped into his heart once more. Such was the effect just one of his uncles had on him. “Thank you for your guidance, uncle. I will not forget all that you have done for me.”</p><p>After all, there was nothing to be forgotten.</p><p>“Good. You really are just like Lambert, Mitya.” From Rufus, the words sounded like a curse, a thing to be abhorred. Even the endearment was laced with nonchalance and lack of care; what Dimitri did mattered very little to Rufus.</p><p>“Don’t let your end be like his,” Rufus continued, and the metaphorical dagger in Dimitri’s chest tightened and twisted.</p><p>His fingers curled around his phone tight enough to hurt.</p><p>“I won’t, uncle,” he said stiffly, but by then Rufus had already hung up on him and left the even beeping as the only sound in Dimitri’s ears for a few more seconds.</p><p><em>Don’t let your end be like his – </em>don’t let a loved one stab you in the back, that was what Rufus meant. It was one of the few solid pieces of advice Dimitri had ever gotten from him. A lesson his uncle practiced himself: Dimitri did not know one being that enjoyed his uncle’s company or willingly sought him out once they knew him.</p><p>Dimitri put the phone back into his pocket and took in the crispy air of winter afternoon. The student apartment complex loomed over him, but to him it felt more welcoming than any fancy castle he had ever had the chance to visit.</p><p>He went back inside.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When Dimitri came back in, he was bombarded with questions. Felix saw the discomforted look on his face and refrained from adding to it, but he also didn’t stop Sylvain and Ingrid from prodding at what was clearly a sore spot.</p><p>Damned curiosity.</p><p>Ingrid started it with: “Which uncle was it?”</p><p>Dimitri sat down on the table with them and played with his fork a bit before absently answering, “Rufus.”</p><p>The look on his face was distant, like that of a person that tried hard to zone out a nasty pain in the toe they had stubbed on something. Felix knew he had looked the same way when he tried talking about Glenn in therapy. It had lasted just that one visit. Being vulnerable in front of a stranger was worse than anything Felix’s own mind could do to him.</p><p>“Oh,” Ingrid said tonelessly, her face carefully blank when Felix glanced at her. Her fingers, however, gripped at her knife so hard her knuckles turned white. “What did he want?”</p><p>“Asked why I haven’t gone home.” Dimitri laughed, the sound of it dry and lifeless. “I suppose he has missed me a lot since I left for Enbarr a few years back.”</p><p>“Why not go back? Just to tell him to fuck off,” Sylvain suggested.</p><p>“Sylvain,” Ingrid started just as Felix nodded and said, “I agree.”</p><p>Ingrid’s head turned to him, her lips pursed thin. For a moment, Felix thought he glimpsed something in the midst of her hair and under her headband, but the moment passed as Ingrid glowered at him. Her brows twitched with the start of a real, genuine anger. “Don’t you encourage his stupidity, Felix. Dimitri isn’t going to something as dan—<em>foolish</em> as that.”</p><p>Ingrid’s lips hovered over the word she had meant to say only for a moment, the noise already beginning to form, but she bit her lip and changed her direction mid-sentence.</p><p>Felix noticed, because he paid a little too much attention to people around him for someone that preferred his own company.</p><p>“Enough of that,” Dimitri’s voice cut off the tension. When Felix looked at him again, Dimitri’s face was much more open, the one visible eye bright as it regarded him. His lips twitched before he went on, “I had a question for you, Felix. You don’t have to tell me, of course, but—”</p><p>“Just spit it out.”</p><p>“When’s your birthday?”</p><p>Felix blinked, hand frozen mid-air on its way toward his face. “Excuse me?”</p><p>Dimitri smiled, a sheepish little thing instead of the wider ones Felix had seen him make more and more around him. “I just—wanted to make sure when it is. I dislike missing out on a friend’s birthday simply because I forgot to ask when it is.”</p><p>Dimitri faltered a little on the word <em>friend</em>, but Felix decided to ignore that.</p><p>“I don’t do anything for my birthday, so it doesn’t really matter, does it?” he asked a little too sharply, wincing when Dimitri’s expression fell. This was why people didn’t like Felix: he was impossible to do anything for. “Ugh. Pegasus 20<sup>th</sup>. You didn’t miss it yet. Don’t you <em>dare</em> do anything for it.”</p><p>Felix pointed his knife at Dimitri as if that was supposed to encourage Dimitri to forget all about it. Instead, Dimitri tried to suppress a chuckle but failed miserably.</p><p>More sincerely, once he caught his breath, Dimitri murmured, “I would never—ever do something you don’t want me to do, Felix.”</p><p>For some reason, Felix thought he heard a <em>never again</em> slotted between the words, even though they were definitely not said out loud.</p><p>Sylvain ruined the moment with a loud, stretched out “Awww” that once more roused Felix’s murderous intentions towards his oldest and closest friend.</p><p>The next ten minutes Ingrid had to hold Felix back from attempting to stab Sylvain in his bare chest with a plastic fork.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>They ended up all curled on Sylvain’s bed to watch reruns of a TV show with too big a budget to explain why it was so terrible. Even the costumes were ill-suited for the time period the show tried to portray. A couple centuries off at least: the colors were a little <em>too</em> muted for something Adrestian Empire’s nobility would wear.</p><p>Not that Felix knew anything about that. Mercedes had commented on it once when they had watched snippets of the show on YouTube.</p><p>No one brought up Miklan or Dimitri’s uncle, and so they were all at peace. Sylvain had pulled a shirt on, though he remained pantless. Dimitri had taken off his sweater, revealing a loose t-shirt beneath. It did little to hide his pecs or other muscles, but Felix didn’t care as he wasn’t looking.</p><p>Ingrid had taken off nothing and put on nothing, but she kept fiddling with her ear-covering braid and not paying attention to what happened on the screen.</p><p>Felix was pressed up against Dimitri and his eyes directed to the television, but he wasn’t watching the drama either. He had caught sight of a deep scar on Dimitri’s forearm when Dimitri had taken off his sweater. Now he kept thinking about it, stupid as that was.</p><p>He wondered if it was one of his uncles, if that was the reason for the look on Dimitri’s face when he had mentioned Rufus.</p><p>It wasn’t any of his business, and soon Felix stopped thinking about it altogether when Dimitri’s arm slipped around him, spreading warmth through Felix’s back like a damned furnace. The mattress beneath them dipped a little as Dimitri fixed himself into a more comfortable posture.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Dimitri said quietly to him, words nearly drowning under the screeching countess on the television, “my arm was starting to get numb. Do you—mind?”</p><p>The warmth on Felix’s face definitely didn’t count as a blush. “Whatever,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”</p><p>It was a big deal. Just not big enough to make a scene out of it.</p><p>If Felix <em>enjoyed</em> it, no one would ever know, and that was all the more reason to keep from drawing anyone’s attention to it.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next time: Rufus Blaiddyd's proper introduction :) Oct 11th.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. behind your back</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rufus Blaiddyd, Edelgard von Hresvel, and Dimitri all have their own matters to attend to. For all of them, the past and the present are ever there, same yet different.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the mountains between Sreng and Faerghus, gods and goddesses lived in relative harmony. Across Fódlan, there were many dwellings such as the palace that stood hidden on these mountains, but gods and goddesses of Faerghus often preferred to laze around here rather than on either of the borders of Duscur or Adrestia.</p><p>And why wouldn’t they?</p><p>The palace that rose high into the sky was a masterpiece of craftsmanship: crystal and ice shaped the many towers around the main structure, which itself reflected light like a diamond when sun so much as touched it.</p><p>Inside was a kingdom of ice and snow, and none that lived there minded the cold that came along like an uninvited guest. No human had ever made it inside and survived; even without any godly interference, hypothermia had done countless fools in. Bones and ripped clothing decorated the lower floors and the inner courtyard, trophies no one had ever cleaned up.</p><p>In one of the lounge rooms of the castle proper, three deities sat idly by: one sipped at tea, one blackberry wine, and the third lay on an armchair with an expression of utter boredom upon his striking face. This room, too, was made of the bluest of ice crystals found in both Sreng and Duscur’s mountains.</p><p>Outside the window stood the highest peak of the mountain range, covered in snow all year round. Many humans had died reaching for it, and some had survived but later died within the castle. Many more magical creatures hid there in the secret mountain passages, either scared out of their wits or hermits by nature.</p><p>Rufus of the Blaiddyds leaned further against the arm of the chair he lounged on. Crystal chair covered in soft cushions made for a more comfortable seat than one might have believed at first. Still, he thought as he let his gaze linger on the world outside this little room, some human inventions were missed dearly.</p><p>He looked to his right. The goddess sipped at her tea in peace, her bare shoulders warmed by a strip of sunlight that came in through the Srengi side of the mountains. Hair that reminded Rufus both of peaches and the palest oranges of sunrise cascaded down her shoulders, some strands resting near her well-endowed bosom.</p><p>Rufus’s gaze, without a single shred of shame, lingered.</p><p>Cornelia, the goddess of discord, paid no mind to his stare and neither did her companion, who lounged on another armchair but upright unlike Rufus. He was in his human form – long, dark hair slicked back and which reached even lower than Cornelia’s, and purple eyes that never smiled even when his mouth did.</p><p>The similarities with Patricia nearly made Rufus laugh and not for the first time. His lips curled into a mockery of a smile and he queried, “Are you intending to go somewhere, Thales?”</p><p>Rufus’s tone had no effect on the elder god, whose brow remained still as winter as he replied, “It appears I must drag my niece to rest, as she stubbornly refuses to leave Enbarr.”</p><p>Even so, he made no move other than slowly rolling the glass of blackberry wine in his hand seemingly thoughtlessly. Thales’s eyes snapped onto Rufus in the next moment, sudden as a strike of lightning. “How about your nephew?”</p><p>“Considering the season, he’s bound to be troublesome in the next coming months but as soon as spring and summer arrive, he’ll be useless. And right now, it seems he prefers Fhirdiad to family duty.” Rufus’s voice was just as bored as the expression on his face, which – this must be insisted on – was quite handsome. “Sothis only knows why.”</p><p>“Sothis knows nothing,” Thales cut in, his voice steady even through annoyance. The gloved hand tightened around the glass ever so slightly. “She is long dead, Blaiddyd.”</p><p><em>As are most of her children,</em> Rufus thought. <em>Or should be.</em> A shame. What little Rufus remembered of the Mother Goddess, she had been quite a catch. Seiros, as well.</p><p>“Asides from the ones hiding in Garreg Mach,” Cornelia said, her acrylic nails tapping against the teacup. <em>Clak-clak-clak. </em>Her voice was like honey on her best days: sweet and flowy, a pleasant ingredient to any conversation. So pleasant even that the other participants would not notice the seeds of discord she sowed in with a sugary smile and a siren voice.  </p><p><em>Stop reading into my mind. </em>Rufus scoffed at her, and Cornelia smiled smugly in return.</p><p>
  <em>But it is so much fun, Rufus dear.</em>
</p><p>“We will break the seal around the monastery eventually,” Thales said and receded back into full boredom. His well-enunciated words echoed off the crystal walls even without having to raise his voice. “There is no need to worry yourself so, Cornelia. Were I you… I would worry about your own responsibility.”</p><p>“But of course,” Cornelia said easily. “Unlike you two, however, I am perfectly capable of multitasking.”</p><p>Thales made no further remarks, only brought the glass back to his lips and drank.</p><p>Rufus stared at them, eyes half-lidded and droopy, before pushing a curl of gold-spun hair behind his ear. They had been his sole companions for a while now, as the once fully occupied palace had emptied out over the centuries. That didn’t mean he had to regard them with anything more than contempt.</p><p>“If you are going to Enbarr…” Rufus drawled, cold gray eyes flickering back to the window. The curtains were a lovely shade of turquoise but blended too much into the walls for Rufus’s liking. The palace had a way of making him feel entrapped – as it always had.</p><p>An emperor butterfly fluttered its wings on his index finger. He crooked it, watched the butterfly stutter before rising into trembling flight. Its deep blue color shone in the winter day like a beacon.</p><p>“I will go to Fhirdiad.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Cornelia stayed behind as the two gods departed each on their own journeys, her palms still curled around a teacup. It was the bitterest black tea she had found, which was to say “not bitter enough”. The cool air touched her shoulders, then brushed right past them as if deeming it not worth the effort to chill her.</p><p>Cornelia slid the fur boa lower on her arms and waited. She had set her empty cup of tea down when the knocking came. The goddess’ lips curled, and she called out pleasantly, “The door’s open, little one.”</p><p>Her voice, amplified by the magic that lay thick in the air, carried well to the door, which creaked open and shut close almost as soon as the first noise had occurred. Cornelia listened to the footsteps that danced over the carpeted floor, thinking it quite the musical. When she finally lifted her gaze, the demigod was in front of her, violet hair framing his face and a scarf covering his undoubtedly pouting mouth.</p><p><em>Adorable</em>, the goddess of discord mused and offered another one of her indulgent smiles to him with a tip of her head. “Yuri. It has been too long. Come sit with me, won’t you? I still have some tea.”</p><p>The little half-god half-mortal shook his stubborn head. His eyes, which matched his hair, narrowed. “I am not here to play nice, I’m here to give you a report.”</p><p>Even through a layer of fabric, he sounded so defiant.</p><p>Typical of mortals – and demigods, Cornelia thought. That was why she found them so amusing. Little Edelgard included. She steepled her fingers over her crossed knees and eyed Yuri for a moment longer. Instead of showing discomfort, Yuri merely stared back expressionlessly. Like a little puppet.</p><p>“You are no fun.” Cornelia tutted but gestured for him to go on. “How is Fhirdiad?”</p><p>“Snowy. Getting colder every day,” Yuri grumbled and tugged his scarf lower. He shook off the remaining snow from his hair much like an indignant cat. “Your little god of winter brought his season early this year. Started snowing in Wyvern Moon already.”</p><p>“I did hear he left Enbarr.” Whatever for, though… there were few things that could move the mentally frail god into an abrupt change. Cornelia frowned at her thoughts and flicked her wrist at Yuri. Rufus’s butterfly came to rest on her extended finger, its fragile blue wings glowing bluer under the fading light. Cornelia stroked the creature. Created just for death, poor thing. “Keep going, little bird.”</p><p>“Apparently so,” Yuri said and shrugged. “He’s reunited with some of his friends, from what little I gathered around the university. The fox spirit and the elf.”</p><p>“Oh, those two. I thought they’d have died by now. Neither one did ever have any survival skills on their own…” She remembered their screams on a battlefield well enough. The elf had cried and cried, and it had been pitiful – <em>good girls don’t cry</em>, Cornelia had made the wind whisper in her ears. <em>Good girls stand up and take revenge. </em>She stopped crying then, and silence had taken over the fresh graveyard of fairies once more.</p><p>Cornelia wondered how she was doing now. She must have grown up from the sniveling wimp she had been back in the day.</p><p>“Just those two?” she inquired and studied Yuri’s deadpan. “No one else was with them?”</p><p>“Mmhm. As far as I know. I only met the fox briefly, and he was drunk out of his mind then.”</p><p>“<em>His </em>reincarnation should be at hand…” Cornelia said, frowning at the butterfly on her finger. Reincarnation cycles were complex – and got more complex for non-human entities. Even an agent of chaos such as her had very little influence on the works of fate. “That would certainly rejuvenate little Mitya’s spirits, should it have happened.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t know,” Yuri said flatly. Then, almost accidentally, he continued, “He’s studying up on Faerghus’s history from the human perspective.”</p><p>He did not mean the fox spirit.</p><p>“Oh? Is he now?” Cornelia’s smile died and her finger beneath the butterfly crooked. The butterfly shattered into pieces just like that, with no effort at all.</p><p>Rufus’s creations were just like the god himself: as fragile as glass, as see-through as the palace walls in their shared abode. Predictable. He had yet to surprise Cornelia even once over the many years she had known him.</p><p>“Mmhm.” Yuri’s expression fell into boredom. Half-mortal he was, but he had a god’s constitution and physique: the cold didn’t bother him, no matter how deep it seeped. “Are you happy now? I would have waited until I had a little more to report back. Not that I’m at your beck and call anyway.”</p><p>“You may keep telling yourself that,” Cornelia said with a little laugh. “Just remember who it is you depend on for your ascension, dear boy.”</p><p>After Yuri left, silence took over once more.</p><p>Cornelia stood up and walked out of the simple parlor. Translucent ice statues greeted her as her heels clicked on the floor, and she passed twenty of them before she reached one of the castle’s most ornate doors: silver slithered between the blue crystals, and red strings curled across the surface. The shape of a dagger was imprinted on the door along with everything else.</p><p>Cornelia opened it easily and entered a room where dust had made a comfortable home. Her nose twitched at it, but soon she made her way deeper in.</p><p>The locked exit from this world to the one beyond and the one between was all but invisible to the human eye, but Cornelia saw its humming edges press against the farthest corner in the bed chamber that had once belonged to the goddess of fate.</p><p>There She had hidden Herself – the mother of winter, the wife of order, the guide of fate – and never gotten out. Not a single strand of her ebony black hair had ever been found. Not a speckle of her rich magical powers.</p><p>Not a trace of Cornelia’s guilt, either.</p><p>“Oh, Madame Blaiddyd,” she whispered as she looked at the sealed entrance to the worlds beyond and between. “You best start thinking whether you want to see your son go next. Time is ticking, and fate is not on your side this time, <em>guide</em>.”</p><p>No response from the thin air, but Cornelia turned around with a sated smile rising along the corner of her mouth regardless.</p><p>She knew she had been heard.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>In Enbarr, the Vestra Estate stood above the city proper and looked over it from a tall, forested hill. The city’s governance had long tried to get it turned into a museum or another sightseeing spot, but whoever the estate belonged to refused them again and again. Eventually, the city officials had ceased their badgering.</p><p>One too many stalking incidents led one to suspect that the estate was cursed or its unknown owners criminals not to be messed with. Giving up on the project was only natural. And so the gothic home was left alone to age and rot.</p><p>The Vestras had once been a prominent family in Enbarr’s high society, but their line had long since died out as their last heir had never married and conceived any children. With him gone, the Estate had fallen into disrepair until one of the family’s old friends bought it for themselves. They never did anything to renovate, however – and so the old gothic house remained much the same as it had been when first built, bathroom and plumping fixes aside.</p><p>Inside, the house appeared just as abandoned as on the outside, but once one made their way to the cellars, they would find out that the façade of abandonment was only that – a façade.  </p><p>The underground floor was cold and made of thick stone. Enbarr’s scorching summer heat never reached down there, and so the god of winter had spent a considerable amount of time recharging in the damp darkness, surrounded by coffins and wax-dripping candles. The god had left months ago now, though, and Hubert von Vestra contemplated on whether he should finally remove the guest coffin from the room. It took too much space away from his experiments, and he had much work to do.</p><p>Unfortunately, he hadn’t managed it before as Ferdinand kept bringing guests over against Hubert’s wishes. Something about not wanting either Hubert or Edelgard feel lonely after Dimitri had gone. Utterly ridiculous, as was expected of that man.</p><p>In the cellar, four spacious coffins lay side by side, with minimal space between them as to leave room for Hubert’s experiments on the other side of the room. Thick and bitter smell oozed out and permeated through the air. It would only be a little time before some passing jogger would complain about the smell to the city officials again.</p><p>But that was still not his most urgent problem.</p><p>“Lady Edelgard,” he said and rapped his knuckles against one of the coffins. Its paint was crimson red, and Adrestia’s twin-headed eagle stood as a black shadow upon it. A memory of a time when nationalism had burned through Edelgard’s veins like fire before it sizzled out with her mortal life. “I have messages for you.”</p><p>He waited. He gave her plenty of time, which she wouldn’t need under normal circumstances. But it was winter, though Enbarr didn’t yet show signs of it, and her powers were waning. She needed more time, and he gave it to her despite everything.  </p><p>Eventually, the coffin lid slid open and an exhausted Edelgard von Hresvelg, the goddess of spring and so much more, rose to sit.</p><p>“Messages, you said?” she rasped. Even in the dark, Hubert saw the lines under her eyes and the strain in the curve of her shoulders. Winter was still early, so things would only get harder for her as weeks would come, and Hubert loathed the thought immensely. That she should be forced to strain herself this much…</p><p>“Yes,” he said. “You told me to wake you if I ever got word of your stepbrother, as I recall.”</p><p>Edelgard’s eyes narrowed into complete awareness at his words, and her usual stern façade eased just barely to show her relief. “Dimitri has sent a letter, then.”</p><p>“He has.” Hubert handed one of the letters to her. “Of course, you know his handwriting better than I do.”</p><p><em>Edelgard, </em>declared the envelope, without any mention of address or surname. The crow Hubert and Dimitri used in the letter deliveries between the siblings had arrived just that morning. Another bird, of different feather and one that nauseated Hubert, had arrived nearly in tandem with it.</p><p>“Thank you, Hubert,” she said absently and pulled out the letter from its thin confines.</p><p>He waited.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p><em>He has returned,</em> Dimitri’s letter said. <em>He has returned, and so has my heartbeat.</em></p><p>Yes, it was undoubtedly Dimitri. Who else could wax such drama over the matters of the heart? Edelgard’s expression very nearly slipped into a smile at Dimitri’s shaky cursive.</p><p>There was not a single doubt who the <em>he</em> in Dimitri’s letter could be. He, who Dimitri had grieved for so long – to the point of maddening uselessness, to the point where sense could not reach his unwilling ears. He, whose death had caused wars and mutinies.</p><p>Edelgard’s lips fell into a steep downward curve. “It appears that he has reincarnated,” she said, knowing well that she did not need to elaborate further than that for Hubert. “Dimitri seems quite excited, if his wobbly handwriting is anything to go by.”</p><p>“Hm.” When she looked up, Hubert’s expression remained thoughtful. “What do you make of it, Lady Edelgard? Will it be to our advantage, or… simply a hindrance?”</p><p>“I would like to think Dimitri has better control of his emotions now than he used to,” she said at length, her relief changing into concern the more she contemplated the news. “He hasn’t broken a single promise to me since I took his eye.”</p><p>But the situation was different now, and Edelgard’s thoughts didn’t run so smoothly. She exhaled slowly, as though that would drive away the headache forming behind her eyes. The tired look Dimitri had given her when they last saw each other emerged in her mind and tugged at her withering heartstrings. “I will speak to him when winter and spring meet, but no sooner. I will let him have this moment.”</p><p>Her plans needed to ripen further, still. It was why she had let Dimitri leave Enbarr in the first place: with the full confidence and knowledge that it would be a while before she needed his help in breaking the remaining puppet strings attached to Fódlan’s fate.</p><p>But the time would come.</p><p>“As you say, Lady Edelgard.” Hubert paused then, and a reluctant tone crept into his voice. “There is… also another message delivered to you. It’s from your uncle.”</p><p>Edelgard had known to expect to hear something from him since the end of autumn, but to think it would happen this soon… But Arundel – or rather, the disgusting pretender that used the name of her mother’s family – had less patience than she had thought. Tsk. It kept growing shorter and shorter over the years.</p><p>Which could be an advantage under different circumstances. But Edelgard was too weary to consider it further right then, and so she gestured for Hubert to read the message out loud to her.</p><p>Hubert did. The message was, summarized from her uncle’s lengthy rant, this: <em>I am coming to ensure you will withdraw from Enbarr and find rest with us until your season returns, my dear niece. You are only hurting yourself in your tantrum.</em></p><p>Edelgard was mildly amused by the end of it, but just as dismayed. “I have told him again and again I will never return to Oghma mountains. He is as ceaseless as a swarm of insects.”</p><p>“Indeed. How foolish he is to think he can bait you with such flimsy extortion.”</p><p>How long would it take before Arundel – <em>Thales</em> – realized that Edelgard had no love in her heart for her father, the weakling god that lay dying in the mountains? Edelgard didn’t know, but it paid off to pretend that she wasn’t as heartless as she had come to be.</p><p>Hearts, those capable of feeling, only got in the way of bigger things. Edelgard’s had died with her human body. But if her uncle – or what pretended to be her uncle – thought her the same girl she was all those dozens of centuries ago…</p><p>Well, that would be his mistake.</p><p>“Where is Ferdinand?” she asked. “We must share the news with him, as well. Our uninvited guest will require preparations.”</p><p>“He is out… there somewhere.” Hubert cleared his throat and looked into the distance. “Who knows if he’ll return to us.”</p><p>“Hubert.”</p><p>Hubert managed a thin smile that would look unpleasant to most others. To Edelgard, it looked only weary. “He has gone out to stock up on his lotion. I told him there was no need to as winter is coming, but Ferdinand listens to no one, least of all reason.”</p><p>“He expects action this winter.” Edelgard sighed and put Dimitri’s letter away before tidying the clothes she had slept in. She slept much like the dead, with the coffin and all, and there were not many wrinkles to smooth out. “I suppose I can allow him his delusions.”</p><p>She had fought battles in winter before. All of them had nearly ruined her. Her fingers itched for her axe, Aymr, but all she had on her was the dagger she slept with.</p><p>Hubert lent her his hand, and she pulled herself up with it. Her body and all of its bones ached dully from the effort, but it was nothing compared to the pain she had gone through to reach her unwanted but much needed godhood.</p><p>She stepped over the edge of her coffin and took a deep breath.</p><p>It was only the beginning.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Ethereal Moon sent Dimitri into a deep melancholy, as his assigned birth month always did. He did not know if he was actually born then, but everyone assigned the 20<sup>th</sup> day of the month to him and so it was his. As long as he had been alive, he had felt most at ease, most at home, when winter solstice neared.</p><p>Things had changed after his father had died. Again after Fee died.</p><p>Dimitri now looked to the full moon on the sky from the windows of his simple apartment. It glowed silver, stars sprinkled all around it against the dark canvas behind them. He remembered still how his father pointed out constellations and whispered explanations to him, though his father’s features were but a dim recollection by now. Dimitri remembered the King’s Right Hand especially well, and his father’s dry laugh as he described it.</p><p><em>It’s the star the first human with the title of Blaiddyd named after his knight, </em>he said between the kisses he rained down on Dimitri’s hair, which stepmother always called pale and sickly like the Faerghus moon. She sounded distant whenever she said that, and her hand wasn’t as kind as it usually was as it stroked his hair.</p><p>
  <em>His precious lionheart, forever memorized in the stars. Kyphon, that was his name. </em>
</p><p>Dimitri tried to find the star from the narrow view of the sky his window offered, but even crouching on the floor and craning his neck up did not give him a glimpse of it. He remained on his toes and knees on the floor for a while until he eventually gave in and slumped forward. His head hit the windowsill. He had no flowerpots to break on it, so it didn’t matter.</p><p>His father had told him many other things, too. About the fae, about the world they shared, about how to be good to humans and how to stand tall in adversity.</p><p>Some things Dimitri hadn’t understood before it was too late to fix his worst mistakes.</p><p>And now – the same thing that had been on his mind recently weighed it down yet again.</p><p><em>Father, </em>he wondered, <em>how should I help your dear friend? How do I help him in his hour of need and salvage the damage your broken bond left behind in him?</em> The questions had been haunting him since he first recognized Achille’s face on Felix’s father. He should have known. Souls with such close relationships were always bound to reincarnate together. Of course Achille would still be his father.</p><p>He should have known, and he should have helped Rodrigue before.</p><p>Again, his own failings – his wallowing, as Fee would have called it with that endearing scowl on his face – had led to this.</p><p>Dimitri stood up and returned to his bookshelf, feet dragging and nearly caught by the edge of the carpet. Trembling hands took the music box, which was nearly as old as him. Dimitri looked down at its wooden surface and the delicate carvings that had faded with time.</p><p>In the silence of the night, memories were much easier to dig up and indulge in.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>It was little Mitya’s birthday, and Faerghus was blanketed in snow. Happy and joyful occasion as it was, many came from afar to greet the little winter god and his family – only his father, really – and among those were the fae from the Fraldarius lands. Fee and Glenn reached Mitya first, and Fee handed him a fae-made dagger with the seriousness a birthday present warranted.</p><p>“It is not going to hurt him,” Achille assured his friend, the god that stood aside as the children chattered and laughed. Mitya caught the words only because he had caught sight of the box in the Fairy King’s hands and was studying it curiously as the two fathers conversed.</p><p>Achille was saying, “It is of finer metal than most, but not any that can harm you.”</p><p>Mitya’s father looked down and smiled as he met his son’s eager eyes. His voice boomed over the fae princes’ ongoing argument. “It seems you have my little Mityushka’s attention, old friend.”</p><p>“So it seems.” Slowly, the king of the Fraldari fae bent down to come face to face with the young god, and held out a wooden box.</p><p>“It’s made of the heartwood of our forest,” he explained to Mitya, whose eyes had gone wide at the sight of the painted and carved box. It shone brilliantly under the barest hint of sunlight, and Achille helpfully turned it around to let Mitya have a good look at it before he gave it to the little god.</p><p>“A music box,” he said, and his one wing twitched at his back. For once, it glowed with the same blue-green color as it used to in better days. “Open it, and it’ll play a song.”</p><p>Mitya held the box very carefully between his hands and looked anxiously to his father.</p><p>“Go on,” the elder god said, smiling with all confidence that Mitya’s hands would not break his gift. Mitya did not know it yet, but fae-made items were much more durable than one might expect, inferior only to dwarves and their crafts.</p><p>Mitya opened the box’s lid, and music spilled forward. The sound of it was sweeter than honey and more melancholic than the colorless half-season between fall and winter. A figure of a fairy leaped up the moment Mitya lifted the lid, and he stared at it in awe as the music swirled around them in the castle of ice and crystal.</p><p>Music was a magic of its own: it gave birth to emotions and stirred tears and joy.</p><p>Mitya smiled, and the music startled a laugh out of his father as well.</p><p>“Achille,” the guardian deity of Faerghus said with great wonder, “is this not the song we used to—”</p><p>“Indeed,” the fae king said as he reached out to ruffled Mitya’s wheat-blond hair. Mitya gave no reaction, still staring at the box and listening to the song it played. Achille’s smile softened. “It seems the little one has a similar taste in music as we did, old friend.”</p><p>For days and weeks from there on, the castle was filled with the music of one song alone. The gods and goddesses that resided in the castle would shake their heads at the little one’s insistence, but none could suppress their smiles.</p><p>Save for his uncle, of course.</p><p>Mitya carried it and Fee’s dagger everywhere with him. Sweet was the child’s joy, and yet in time he would lose it all.</p><p>Alas, fate was cruel.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will be up on Oct 25th, and it will go deeper into Rodrigue's backstory in particular. Oh, the chapter warnings for that will be... something. </p><p>Thank you for reading!!! It really means a lot people are reading and supporting this.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. our own personal hells</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Rodrigue's past and present are both unpleasant things.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CHAPTER WARNINGS: </p><p>excessive use of alcohol is mentioned often, medical malpractice (?) on someone's part, Gautier-typical misogyny, death, mental health issues (depression, mild suicidal thoughts)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Reincarnation: a mortal soul’s journey in this world lasts longer than one lifetime: again and again, it is reborn with a new body and circumstances. Human souls reincarnate most often, otherwise their lives are painfully and unfairly short.</p><p>That is not to say they are the only ones that reincarnate – the fae and elves, who are cousins to the fae in the same way dogs are cousins to wolves, share the same journey despite their considerably longer lifespans.</p><p>Vampires, twisted creatures that they are, have no luxury of reincarnation.</p><p>And neither do gods.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>A long, long time ago, a fairy’s scream echoed through the winter landscape. A horrid, despair-filled scream it was, and not one would have thought it to have come from a fairy as fair as the one in question was.</p><p>“Sothis, no,” the fae cried, but a dead goddess would not – could not – come to his aid.</p><p>War was cruel, but humans were crueler – for they had found a way to mortally wound a god, and not even the king of the Fraldari could heal it with his magic.</p><p>Rivers of blood rushed out to join the fallen mortals, and still the fairy cried.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>For nearly as long as he remembered, Rodrigue had suffered from chronic migraine, though every now and then it seemed to fade and leave him be for a few months at a time. It would always flare back to life and shut him inside a bedroom with curtains pulled over the windows. Like most other people with chronic pain, Rodrigue learned to live with it, but his parents quickly grew tired of him whining about pain.</p><p>He had been eleven or twelve when the migraines first started, perhaps offset by the strange dreams Rodrigue had been having in the preceding year.</p><p>He woke from them with a soul-crushing longing that boys his age should know nothing about, with tears wetting his lashes and heart breaking from a pain that he could never explain. It would have been confusing enough with just this, but then the headaches came and turned into migraines that kept him from attending school and made his parents frustrated.</p><p>The local doctor didn’t know what to do about it, or that was the impression Rodrigue got.</p><p>“A shot of whiskey before bedtime,” the man said to his parents in a low whisper that Rodrigue was not meant to hear. “It helps with sleep, but can also be effective against headaches.”</p><p>Every time the doctor came over, he smelled like cheap whiskey himself and Rodrigue had to wrinkle his nose to keep the stench away. His father always scolded him for “making faces at the fine doctor” but he couldn’t help it. After he started the “medication”, Rodrigue smelled alcohol even in his dreams. He did sleep better, at least: the odd dreams stayed away on the nights his parents remembered to pour him a shot.</p><p>(Later on, through his own medical studies, Rodrigue wondered how that man had kept his job until retirement. How no one had sued him for irresponsible prescriptions. Turned out money – or lack of it – could intimidate people into compliance.)</p><p>Even before the migraines started, Rodrigue’s childhood was austere and rather lonely. As they lived in the old lands where the fae were said to dwell, they had very few neighbors and exceedingly small community. There weren’t many children of Rodrigue’s age that he could easily visit, and most of them he could only ever see at school as many parents were rather paranoid about the “cursed lands the Fraldarius family lived on”.</p><p>It was lonely, and the forests around their home filled Rodrigue with nostalgia that terrified him. Theo, who was six years younger than him, was much braver. Or reckless – but Rodrigue had nothing but positive thoughts for his little brother, the only one of his blood that didn’t make him feel like the odd one out.</p><p>“Rodriiiiiigue,” Theo would whine and squint at him, all cross-eyed, until Rodrigue sighed and gave in to his little brother despite the crawling feeling in his own spine. But even so, Rodrigue enjoyed the wet moss under his feet and the rare sunlight that filtered through tree leaves and branches. Summers, no matter how brief, always were the best of Faerghus.</p><p>And then there was his imaginary friend, who in hindsight was perhaps the first of his symptoms. Rodrigue would forget all about him in some years, but when he was little, that imaginary friend was his everything.</p><p>Blue eyes, blond hair, and a smile so bright it made even a gloomy child like Rodrigue happy.</p><p><em>Lambert,</em> Rodrigue called him without a second thought for what to name his friend. It came to him as easily as breathing did, and his friend grinned whenever he said the name so Rodrigue made sure to say it as much as he could.</p><p>
  <em>Lambert. Lambert. Lambert—</em>
</p><p>Only an imaginary friend, a figment of his mind, but still so dear and true as any friend of flesh and blood would be. Or so young Rodrigue believed. He knew well Lambert wasn’t there – his parents didn’t see him and didn’t bother pretending – but it didn’t bother him so much as the loneliness without Lambert did.</p><p>Rodrigue would fall asleep to whispering his secrets to Lambert and seeing his friend’s lips stretch into a sleepy smile that matched his own. Those nights were as precious as stars in the sky: glimmering little things in a child’s mind, but which would fade away as soon as the child grew up.</p><p>When Lambert disappeared, no one could say. A child’s imagination was fickle, after all.</p><p>But he did disappear, and Rodrigue forgot he ever existed. And then came the headaches and whiskey dressed up as medicine. Unintended consequences: the mindset of “if you drink enough, it will be fine”. And yet nothing would ever be “fine” – something would always be missing, and a shot of whiskey before bed could not replace that.</p><p>He grew and graduated many schools, but the migraines and dreams didn’t cease. The only thing the doctor’s “medicine” ensured was that he now had a predisposition to lean toward alcohol for problems he thought beyond himself. Middle and high school passed by in a daze, but somehow Rodrigue’s grades and the results of a hellish entrance exam ensured he got into University of Fhirdiad and its faculty of medicine.</p><p>That entrance exam might have been the more excruciating four hours of Rodrigue would ever live through. His nails came out bitten short after it.</p><p>The day Rodrigue moved into Fhirdiad was the only time he ever saw his mother cry, and thankfully also the last. He had just wiped his own tears when his new roommate arrived with a loud honk of his (parents’) car.</p><p>Five minutes later, Antoine Gautier had introduced himself into his life. If Rodrigue felt any sort of nostalgia at the sight of his face and the red mullet that touched the back of Antoine’s neck, it must have been his overactive imagination. </p><p>Antoine was a law student; Rodrigue a medical student. The consequences were as predictable as the seasonal changes: they became fast friends that afternoon over pizza and cheap beer, and Rodrigue felt a little less lonely in the world.</p><p>Then their classes started. Rodrigue would always remember the way second-year students chuckled at the first-years and their stress.</p><p>“It gets worse in spring term,” they all said, eyes glazing over as though they were remembering something vastly more unpleasant than the unwanted raisins Rodrigue’s coursemate had been complaining about.</p><p>They were right, though. Approximately a third of Rodrigue’s year had a collective breakdown in the spring term. Rodrigue couldn’t tell if he was going insane from the exhaustion of medical school stress or the dreams that buzzed around him like vultures around a corpse deep in south. Getting up from the bed in the morning suddenly became a real struggle.</p><p>Antoine’s eyes were just as bloodshot.</p><p>“I can recite the traffic laws in this country from memory at this point,” he said as his hand trembled around a cup of extra strong coffee. It was five in the morning. Neither of them had slept. “It’s more efficient than driving school, I swear.”</p><p>Antoine could recite quite a few laws as it was. In their entirety. Addendums and all. The first half of Faerghus’ constitution, too. While Rodrigue could list chemical formulas from the top of his head without quite knowing what to do with any of this information. And a few too many symptoms for a few too many types of cancer.</p><p>Antoine wasn’t Rodrigue’s only friend, though. Just the closest and dearest one.</p><p>And the one that kept getting him in trouble.</p><p>Antoine had a wide net of connections, and so he dragged Rodrigue along to every party he got invited to. Rodrigue’s last experience with “parties” had been his father’s 50<sup>th</sup> birthday celebrations, and while middle-aged men did go crazy at times, it was hardly the same as being packed together in a student apartment with fifteen plus other students with access to liquor.</p><p>“You look like you need a shot,” Antoine told him about ten minutes after they had stepped into the apartment.</p><p>“Make that two,” Rodrigue said, long-suffering as only a medical student with too many readings to go through could be. He side-stepped an already drunken student, who looked to be at least two years older than him. She slunk to the bathroom soon after, retching sounds following.</p><p>It was Rodrigue’s first time – of drinking himself to the point of a blackout.</p><p>He woke up in Antoine’s car the next morning, head aching and mouth tasting like salt, vinegar, and sandpaper. His left foot was missing a shoe. Antoine was at the front seat, body bowed over the steering wheel and keys somewhere down near his feet.</p><p>Blessed be the gods that knocked him out before he could have driven them home.</p><p>Over the course of the first semester alone, Rodrigue lost nearly half a dozen shoes while Antoine lost more ties than either of them could count.</p><p>“Why do you wear them to college parties anyway?” Rodrigue asked on one of their morning drives back home. The winter sun made him bury his head into his hands as his head pounded like a drum solo in a rock song.</p><p>Antoine’s bloodshot eyes squinted at the open road before them before he answered, as if it should be obvious to Rodrigue: “They’re sexy. And some girls are into choking.”</p><p>Rodrigue didn’t press him more than that, deciding that in this way they were as different as two people could possibly be. As different as law and medicine were as subjects. But their lives as students and roommates were the same, and it was enough to abate the deep, aching loneliness in Rodrigue for a time, for days and weeks before the strange dreams came back and struck Rodrigue with a migraine so bad he could barely drag himself to class.</p><p>Antoine asked about it at some point, curious about what could debilitate someone as hardworking and diligent as Rodrigue for days at a time.</p><p>“It isn’t really the dreams themselves,” Rodrigue explained slowly, knowing well he was likely to make himself sound like a fool with his coming words. His hands curled around a coffee mug, and he took a long sip before going on. “It’s the feeling they leave me with. The dreams are innocent on their own, but life always feels a little more meaningless each time I wake from them. Do you know what I mean?”</p><p>“Not really.” Antoine paused. “To me, it just sounds like you need to go to therapy, Rodrigue.”</p><p>“My father doesn’t ‘believe in’ therapy.”</p><p>“Neither does mine. You think that’s why we have so many issues?” Antoine always sounded despondent and disinterested when it came to his own problems. It came with being the youngest in a herd of siblings – when no one had energy left to care about you, you stopped caring about yourself too. College-time Antoine was trying to make up for that with excess, expense, and sex.</p><p>Rodrigue never went quite that far, at least. Whiskey and vodka did the job well enough, even though they also made sure he would later remember little of medical school.</p><p>But he also forgot about the hollow hole in his heart, the one that had been bleeding long before he had even been born into the world. With forgetfulness came momentary peace. With peace came a little more drive to live.</p><p>The lows were lower than they would have been without Antoine and college parties, but the highs were also higher than they would have been otherwise.</p><p>A curse in a blessing, or a blessing in a curse.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The dreams were vague and perhaps that was the worst part of them. Vagueness begged for clarity, and Rodrigue’s mind tried to work clarity into a situation where there was none.</p><p>Forests loomed around him in these dreams, vivid green with magic thick in the air. Rodrigue’s skin prickled as he walked around. Eyes everywhere, some hostile, some less so. In some dreams, he heard flute music from a distance, and at the sound of it tears would run down his cheeks.</p><p>Familiarity was a painful thing, especially when he didn’t know <em>where</em> that familiarity came from. The feeling of having a place to belong without any memories of said place. Those ones hurt the most for someone that had felt a stranger in his own life for most of it.</p><p>When dreams offered more comfort than life did, it became tempting to never wake up again.</p><p>Nostalgia and déjà vu, both unexplained feelings that cut deep into a heart and made their home there. Dangerous, exhausting things.</p><p>It was best to forget.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Rodrigue met Nadia on his third or fourth year, when his studies were less studying and more focused on workplace training. She was older than him, but had started her information sciences studies a year after he had gotten in.</p><p>It wasn’t the kind of love he had often daydreamed of. It wasn’t anything special: no fireworks or breathtaking kisses colored the pages of their story. Theirs was a dull affair even in their time, and Antoine noted this more than once.</p><p>“You couldn’t have fallen for someone a <em>little</em> hotter?” he asked after Nadia had first visited their shared apartment for coffee and a study session. Antoine had his nose buried in a law book, possibly from the Kingdom era of Faerghus history. Historical law had always been of particular interest to the youngest of Gautiers as long as Rodrigue had known him.</p><p>Rodrigue had sighed at Antoine’s question. “You only say that because you don’t like short hair on women.”</p><p>“It looks <em>odd</em> on them, Rodrigue.”</p><p>“So you say, and yet I haven’t seen any support for that.”</p><p>Nadia’s short hair framed her face in an objectively pretty way, Rodrigue thought. He wasn’t obscenely <em>attracted</em> to Nadia, but his mother had always told him to get a partner that understood him and who he understood in return instead of someone he wanted. There was wisdom in her advice.</p><p>Nadia and he went out on coffee dates between classes or practical training at the hospital, and they talked mostly about mundane things. Weather. Their studies. Nadia’s parents, who had been reluctant to let their only daughter to move so far away from Arianrhod.</p><p>Sometimes Nadia asked about his consistent headaches, and Rodrigue answered shortly, curtly. The anxiety of being a man and seeming weak was one yet to be defeated. Nadia had no patience for that façade, however, and she rolled her eyes when he tried to wave it off like it was nothing.  </p><p>“That’s such middle child behavior,” she told him and somehow made it sound like a scathing truth, despite Rodrigue being the oldest of exactly two children. Rodrigue smiled faintly at her harshness, knowing it was a result of past-midnight programming assignments.</p><p>“You know what they say about med and law schools.” He told her the same joke again and again, to the point where she began sighing at his first sentence already. “Never apply if you want a healthy mind and plenty time.”</p><p>At the end of their dates she let him kiss her on the cheek and squeeze her hand. It was nice; it made both of them smile in a way that would send anyone they knew to tease them.</p><p>Antoine asked him to let him know when Rodrigue was planning on having her over so he could give them “privacy”.</p><p>Rodrigue, raised fairly conservatively, made such a scandalous face that Antoine teased him about it at his and Nadia’s wedding later.</p><p>Before that, however, came family introductions and finishing their degrees. Meeting their families went surprisingly well. Nadia’s father’s dogs hadn’t been set on Rodrigue, and likewise Rodrigue’s mother hadn’t wrinkled her nose judgmentally at Nadia and her sense of fashion too much (which consisted of sweatpants and hoodies and emphasized comfort over aesthetics).</p><p>They finished their degrees before marriage, sure, but by then Nadia was four months pregnant and both sides of their families had all something to say about that. Rodrigue spent a few days locked in a room squirming from a migraine afterwards, and so they never truly had anything as glamorous as a wedding night.</p><p>Nadia didn’t mind. “If I wanted roses and romance,” she told him, stroking his hand and testing his forehead for temperature, “I wouldn’t have gotten together with a future doctor, you know.”</p><p>Her own father was a doctor. She had no delusions about that kind of life. Still, it must have been a surprise to her that Rodrigue wanted to return to the old Fraldarius family home and act as a local doctor instead of working at a Fhirdiad – or even Itha, where her employers were – hospital.</p><p>Medical school took a while, so they graduated at the same time. Next fall they married and moved back to Fraldarius. For a while, the routine kept Rodrigue’s body from protesting and mind from conjuring up dreams. Nadia and he shared a bed and held hands. Had Glenn. Had Felix. All the while Nadia worked from home – hers was one of the first programmer jobs that could be done remotely.</p><p>Unfortunately it meant she had to listen to her mother-in-law’s constant critique, which she then shrugged off as politely as she managed. With a thin smile and a middle finger ready to be used. A premonition for their future children.</p><p>At least Rodrigue’s parents died right after Felix was born, and Nadia no longer had to lend an ear to an in-law’s wordy opinions about her skills as a mother. Rodrigue had been terribly ashamed when Nadia relayed her in-law’s words with a perfectly mimicked tone of mockery and condescension.</p><p>The funerals were small, as Rodrigue’s parents had never really had anyone outside of each other and their two children. Of them, the elder Fraldariuses ignored Theo most of the time even when he stayed home and didn’t leave to study. Didn’t even marry, in the end, but when his parents passed he wasn’t at the age where anyone nag him for being a bachelor.</p><p>All the years of managing the household, the kids, and her work took a toll on Nadia, however. Little by little she grew more ill without anyone noticing: Rodrigue’s migraines had turned chronic, Theo busy with farm work, and the children not yet grown enough to understand the signs and draw conclusions.</p><p>Rodrigue spent a summer in a Fhirdiad hospital, away from his children and wife. It was then, he thought numbly at her casket’s side much later, that it really began to drive her down.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>A long-forgotten dream – or perhaps a long-forgotten memory:</p><p> </p><p>Tears streamed down the once so serene face of a fairy. Runes of light magic glowed unevenly, and it made his skin tingle and hum with energy, urging him to uncurl his fingers and let healing light surge into the dying body of his closest friend.</p><p>But it would be to no avail, he knew as he watched the god’s lips grow paler and a tinge of purple spread over them. There was no healing this with his magic alone.</p><p><em>Sothis curse the one that gave humans the forbidden knowledge.</em> The dagger laced with dark magic lay aside Lambert’s heavy body, and each time Achille’s gaze strayed to it, anger flared up amongst the despair.</p><p>A noble asking for his deity’s blessing had been but a ruse to kill the said god. How shameless – Achille’s blue magical runes turned nearly black with his dismay as he recalled it. His vision narrowed to the wound on Lambert’s chest. It bled and bled on, the god’s usual regeneration ineffective. The edges of the wound were purple, turning black from the magic inflicted on it.</p><p>No white magic could heal it.</p><p>But there was still another option. Achille had always worried the day for it would come but hadn’t quite imagined it to be like this.</p><p>Lambert’s eyes lay closed, his eyeballs moving restlessly under the shut lids. Dreaming, but for how long, Achille wondered grimly. The once golden hair had dimmed into lifelessness.</p><p>On the other side of him stood Achille’s firstborn child. Glenn, whose skin glowed with wind magic, stood as still as the dead, but his eyes glimmered with the agony of the living.</p><p>Or Achille was projecting his own feelings again.</p><p>But it was not the time to grieve. Not yet. Achille looked down on the god of order once more. At his friend. He knew what must be done. The enchanted forest around them would protect Lambert for a while yet – enough for Achille’s plan to work out.</p><p>“Glenn,” he said. Glenn had picked the name himself, as all fae did. Like gender, names were flexible and fluid, and Glenn had taken his from a renowned warrior that had lived among humans. He had died a long time ago, but Glenn carried on like a shadow of him.</p><p>“Yes, father?” Glenn fixed his posture. His eyes gleamed. He too worried for the god, who had seen so much of his childhood. Or perhaps seeing his father weep pained him – it was not every day or even decade that a child should see their parent cry.</p><p>Achille dried his eyes. This was not the time. “Glenn,” he repeated, voice even as his gaze locked with his child’s. “There is something you must do for me, little one.”</p><p>Glenn looked back at him – downwards from where Glenn stood and to where Achille crouched beside a dying god. Behind him, the fae forest loomed.</p><p>As if it already knew Achille’s intentions.</p><p>Wind rustled the trees behind them, and Achille whispered to it and Glenn the words no fairy should ever utter, and which no parent should ever say to their children.</p><p>“I need you to cut off one of my wings.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Fairy dust, also called pixie dust in some other circles: a powdery substance that was said to grant miracles. For the longest time, the secret to its production remained a mystery to mankind as the fae kept it a tighter secret than unfaithful men kept their illegitimate children.</p><p>For it required too great a sacrifice for fairies, who had always been so proud of their flight and dance with the wind.</p><p>For fairy dust required one wing from a living fairy.</p><p>And few were ready to pay that price.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The pain wasn’t anything new, as it was a part of life, and yet nothing could ever prepare to the feeling of cold iron at one’s back. Achille ground his teeth together and clenched his fingers, but it did little to distract from the long dagger that hacked at the root of his wing.</p><p>Glenn’s hands moved reluctantly, but they kept at it until the wing fell, completely cut off and limp.</p><p>Glenn had always been exceptionally brave in facing the worst situations. So he held up the wing to his father and asked, softly, “What now, father?”</p><p>The usual fight and life had left Glenn, but it would return soon enough, Achille knew. So he took the wing with his own trembling fingers and got up to his feet. Achille looked down at his hands, where the starlight and magic was beginning to fade. There was not much time.</p><p>“Now,” he said, “I must hurry.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Humanity always celebrated the sacrifices of romantic love so eagerly, and perhaps it was true that two lovers had to give up on things to make mutual love possible. But there was a love just as great as that, as important and encompassing as love for one’s partner and love for one’s children.</p><p>Love for one’s friends was the unappreciated, invisible affection – and yet it could move mountains.</p><p>There was no thought worse than one of losing one’s friends, either to death or to life.</p><p>Many things could be said about the long-since deceased King of Fairies, but his loyalty and dedication to the friendship he and the god of order, Lambert of the Blaiddyd pantheon, had forged was perhaps the most notable of them all.</p><p>A wing for a friend’s life.</p><p>A forbidden thing for a fairy to do, but less consequential than a grain of sand to a friend desperate to save another.</p><p>Indeed, that day fairy dust saved a god, and all of Faerghus rejoiced.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Nadia died, and the Fraldarius lands became intolerable to live in. Memories – dreams? – tugged at his mind more than they ever had. While the children were good at holding his attention, there were days when not even they could push him out of the web of tangled dreams and the awful feeling that he had forgotten something exceedingly important to him.</p><p>He escaped the feeling to Fhirdiad, taking his two children with him.</p><p>While the headaches persisted – not as often as before – the déjà vu -feeling withered like a flower in him. He could breathe in the city where he had spent his university years. New factories had been built in his absence, and a new wing added to the central hospital where he started working. Many of his old acquaintances from university worked there still, and the sense of familiarity this gave was not painful.</p><p>The work was relieving, even. Figuring out a patient’s symptoms was easier – and more rewarding – than going through the same with his own problems that all seemed to have a root in his psyche.</p><p>Antoine had started working at the prosecutor’s office in Gautier while Rodrigue was in Fraldarius. Their sons had attended the same small public school at the two territories’ border, and Sylvain sometimes came to visit while the older son refrained from doing so. Rodrigue wondered about Miklan. Antoine had never been particularly eager to bring him along when the old friends met to catch up on the rare occasion that Antoine’s work as a prosecutor allowed.</p><p>“Come on, Rodrigue,” Antoine would say whenever Rodrigue queried about the children. He would lean close and squeeze at Rodrigue’s elbow, green eyes meeting Rodrigue’s bluer ones. “I didn’t come here to talk about family. I came to see <em>you</em>.”</p><p>What was Rodrigue going to tell him? The one thing he could be proud of was how he had gotten rid of excessive drinking after it became apparent it only worsened his ability to live. He couldn't tell him about the dreams that had resurfaced but changed – of a man with blond hair and blue eyes whose familiarity stung like a knife to the heart. Of his son, who smiled sweetly with those same eyes. There was something sacred about them that begged for protection and secrecy. </p><p>No, there was nothing Rodrigue could tell Antoine those times.</p><p>And then Glenn died, and with him, the last of Rodrigue’s strength.</p><p>Since then, it was as though he was walking through thick smog without a guide. Felix was there in the smog with him – until he went to university.</p><p>Now it was just him.</p><p>Alone, as he had been in the beginning, and longing for something the world would not return to him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The 20<sup>th</sup> day of the Ethereal Moon. A rare day off for Rodrigue, and so he spent it cleaning up the apartment in an even rarer burst of energy. The kitchen was the worst off, the trash bags still lingering in the room’s corner. Without anyone with him, Rodrigue often forgot to take them out until they overstayed their welcome.</p><p><em>Like a one-night stand, </em>Antoine would have said. The thought of Antoine’s crassness was usually enough to send Rodrigue into action. Some sort of shame always rose up at the thought of the Gautiers, especially now that Miklan’s trial was inching closer week by week.</p><p>In the afternoon, Rodrigue settled down to enjoy a bit of coffee, exhausted as he was. He drank it black, with plenty of sugar. Felix had always hated the way he drank his coffee, but Glenn had taken it the same way. At least two teaspoons of sugar into each cup of coffee.</p><p>He looked outside the window wearily, not thinking much of anything as he listened to the radio. It began snowing as he watched. Two more months until Felix’s birthday, he realized. The weeks would roll by fast, but at least he had gotten Felix his present early.</p><p>Glenn’s birthday would be at spring, but there was no real point of celebrating the dead. Felix had told him as much the first time Rodrigue had tried to commemorate the day somehow.</p><p>What Felix said didn’t really stop Rodrigue, though. Each year he took flowers and a present to Glenn’s grave, and each year he would stand there by himself for an awkwardly long time. Mud would often get stuck on his pantleg in the spring’s rainy weather.</p><p>The doorbell’s ring swerved his thoughts from the road they were taking. <em>Ding-dong</em>, it went, and for a moment Rodrigue was confused. Felix wouldn’t be visiting for the Seiros Day holiday this year, and even if he were it was still two weeks too early, and Antoine was too busy prepping his case against his son.</p><p><em>Ding-dong.</em> It certainly came from his door. Rodrigue set his cup down and shuffled towards the front door, a confused frown pulling his brows and mouth down.</p><p>When he opened the door, he found Felix’s blond-haired friend standing a little way from his threshold with an awkward but sincere-looking smile on his face. On his arm, a small fabric bag swayed. Snowflakes melted into pale hair.</p><p>“…Dimitri,” Rodrigue said as he remembered the meal they had shared back in Wyvern Moon, about two months back. “What are you doing here? Felix is not around.”</p><p>Then, before Dimitri could reply, Rodrigue retreated out of Dimitri’s way and gestured for the man to come inside. “Let me make you some coffee since you came here, anyway.”</p><p>“You don’t need to—”</p><p>“Nonsense. You look cold like that. Come warm up.” Rodrigue didn’t have much energy for excessive socializing, but Dimitri was just one person and had seemed reasonable enough when Rodrigue first met him. There should be no surprise headaches coming his way with Dimitri.</p><p>“Very well,” Dimitri said and shut the door behind him. He gingerly took his shoes off, the bag still hanging from his arm, before following Rodrigue into the kitchen. Rodrigue was about to tell him to take off his coat, but Dimitri held out the bag to him before he could.</p><p>“It’s for you,” Dimitri said softly.  Held out his arm a little more until Rodrigue gingerly took the bad from him. “A little early, but it’s for Seiros Day. You celebrate, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yes, I do,” Rodrigue said warily, weighing the bag and considering it. Not very heavy at all – a small book or a container of some sort, then. “You didn’t need to do this, Dimitri. You barely know me.”</p><p>The words tasted like an untruth on his tongue.</p><p>Dimitri smiled at him and unzipped his jacket. Something painfully close to hope and expectation shone on Dimitri’s eye as he said, “I’ll take this to the rack, but please tell me whether it’s to your liking.”</p><p>And so Dimitri returned to the hallway.</p><p>Rodrigue peeked into the bag, coffee all but forgotten. </p><p>The wooden box was unwrapped and worn with age. As Rodrigue picked it up with one hand, he felt its roughness. Most certainly crafted by hand. His fingers sunk into the intricate engravings until he got it out of the bag and between both of his hands.</p><p>Fairy motifs splayed along the box’s sides, and Rodrigue’s heartbeat grew heavier. Sweat turned cold along the line of his neck.</p><p>He opened the lid, trembling like a boy doing something his parents had forbidden him from. Dimitri’s footsteps thudded near the entrance.</p><p>And then…</p><p>Music.</p><p>Brilliant, <em>brilliant</em> music. A small, winged figuring stood at the center of the now opened music box, and Rodrigue stared at it moving around in circles while the song played on and on. Familiar and –</p><p>His eyes burned, and he had to sit down at the table before his knees would give out at the sudden spring of nostalgia that welled up from within.</p><p>A name he had long since forgotten now resurfaced, but he couldn’t quite catch it yet. Like a fish, it dove back into the recesses of his mind after peeking out.</p><p>Rodrigue’s hands shook.</p><p>
  <em>La—</em>
</p><p>“Sir?” Dimitri’s voice cut him off. Rodrigue lifted his head numbly, and there stood Dimitri, a compassionate expression on his face and hair matted against his cheeks. “Are you well? I—”</p><p>“You can just call me Rodrigue, Dimitri,” Rodrigue said with a little smile. “I am well, I just… the song this box plays… it somehow makes me feel…” He didn’t even know how to describe the longing that tugged at his heart. It wasn’t the painful kind that had bothered him most of his life. If anything, this feeling was as joyful as it was wistful. As if he were close to rediscovering an old friend after many years of not seeing them.</p><p>His fingers clutched around the box almost fearfully as the melody came to an end and the fae figure finished its dance. It left behind a flood of emotion that had Rodrigue swallowing thickly. “Are you truly giving this to me?”</p><p>“Yes,” Dimitri said and nodded in further confirmation. His smile was stiff, but he looked relieved to see the box between Rodrigue’s hands. “It is not much, but… I hope it will give you some comfort in your trying times.”</p><p>When Dimitri left not ten minutes later, Rodrigue remained in the kitchen. Inhospitable, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the wooden box that contained music that both healed him and made his heart bleed again.</p><p>He had closed the lid. Now he reopened it.</p><p>The music flowed out, clear as a summer day, and with it came the tears, finally.</p><p>In the dim light of a late Ethereal Moon afternoon, Rodrigue Fraldarius held a music box between his quivering fingers and cried for the first time in what surely was too many years.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p> The distant past and the present pressed together for a blink of a moment.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Achille had spent full twenty hours mashing the wing into fairy dust, but his exhaustion and effort were well worth it. He poured the powder down Lambert’s throat, and while it took a bit of time for the effects to show, the nearly dead god opened his eyes once more. Eyes as blue as ice were dazed, pained from his body’s sudden effort to live.</p><p>He would live.</p><p>Achille slumped against the cold forest floor where the moss was soaked with rain. Dazed with relief, his vision blanked out for a harrowing second, and the shudders he hadn’t noticed going through himself were now everything he could feel. His fingers, stiff from cold, left Lambert’s face. He felt the heartbeat fluttering before settling down into a steady <em>thud-thud-thud</em>.</p><p>Alive.</p><p>“You look strange today,” Lambert told him, eyelids heavy and sleepy like his voice. “Friend, what has happened to you?”</p><p>“It is nothing important, Lambert,” he said. Starlight had dimmed on his skin; magic had abandoned his veins.</p><p>Sometimes friends made greater sacrifices than lovers.</p><p>Achille hung his head and closed his eyes. Around them, all over the enchanted forest of the fae folk, a song erupted.</p><p>A song of joy and sorrow, of friendship and its strength.</p><p>His and Lambert’s song.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>In a Fhirdiad apartment, Rodrigue wept on.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>IMPORTANT UPDATING NOTE: </p><p>I'll be spending November working on Nanowrimo and my other writing projects (such as the long Rodrigue fic I haven't updated since July, whoops), so I'll put updating this on hold for November. I have chapter 11 drafted in its entirety, though, and I will put it up on Dec 6th! I'll also spend November trying to write ahead, so I don't have update-related stress. </p><p>Thanks for everyone that has read and commented thus far! It really means a lot that other people enjoy this other than me, haha :')</p><p>Also yes, Antoine is my take on Margrave Gautier, lmao.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. the eve of saint seiros day</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Felix comes home for the holidays, without the intention to invite Dimitri over.</p><p>Needless to say, Dimitri joins him and his father.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>CW: A passing mention/implication of transphobia.</p><p>about the trans rep here: I'm cis, so I try not to delve too deep into the experience that isn't my own and the details I've added here may be overstepping on my part. Feel free to comment on whether that is the case or not.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Felix struggled with the door’s lock for an embarrassingly long moment. His breaths puffed out as little clouds in mid-winter. Breathing through his nose burned. When the lock finally gave in, he sighed in relief and shoved himself into the warmth of his father’s apartment, cursing while taking off his jacket, scarf, and gloves that all made him feel like an overstuffed toy.</p><p>Faerghus winters. Felix almost wouldn’t wish them on his worst enemies.</p><p>Once Felix stopped cursing to himself, he picked up on the smell wafting through the air from the kitchen and the sound of something sizzling on what must have been a frying pan. Unless the old man had really fucked up this time – but no, it was a pleasant smell, and Felix’s brows furrowed together in confusion.</p><p>His father hadn’t bothered cooking for himself in ages.</p><p>After kicking off his shoes, Felix headed for the kitchen.</p><p>“I’m home,” he called out just as he reached the door, and quickly fell into silence as he took in the sight that greeted him. “The fuck?”</p><p>“Felix,” his father said, not turning away from the stove, “welcome home.”</p><p>What followed was the most bizarre out-of-body experience Felix had likely ever had as he stared at his father’s back and the apron straps tied into a neat bow. Gender bullshit aside, Felix had never struggled to make sense of something quite this much before.</p><p>“What are you doing?”</p><p>His father’s little ponytail bobbed up when he struggled with turning something around on the frying pan. Felix inched closer, much like a wary cat might with its ears pressed down against its head.</p><p>“You like your meat well done, don’t you?” the old man asked, though it was not much of a question. He went on immediately: “You said you were coming for the Seiros Day, so I thought I should cook something you like, Felix. Admittedly… it’s been a little difficult.”</p><p>Felix turned to look into the kitchen sink and grimaced at the sight of another frying pan in there. On it, a large black shape remained, stark against the pan’s natural black color. “The fuck happened to that?”</p><p>“An accident.” Rodrigue’s voice was distant, like he wasn’t really listening to Felix. But for once it wasn’t because he was stuck inside himself.</p><p>“An accident,” Felix repeated. “Sure.”</p><p>Rodrigue looked over his shoulder and smiled at him. It was weary, weighed down by his own woes as usual, but there was a little spark of something more in his eyes than what was usual.</p><p>Felix’s heart stuttered as he went to set the table. A familiar routine from the days when their family had been three instead of two.</p><p>It must have been one of his father’s better days.</p><p>He thought those had disappeared into the purgatory with Glenn.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>A better day didn’t mean his father wasn’t still a mess of a person. Felix realized this watching his father eat the risotto and two steaks and only barely managing one of the steaks before gesturing for Felix to have the other instead.</p><p>“You’re a growing boy,” Rodrigue said.</p><p>“Father, I’m twenty-two.”</p><p>The old man eyed him as if trying to deduce whether that was true or not, and Felix’s cheeks flushed with annoyance. “Stop looking at me like that.”</p><p>They ate in silence for a bit longer. Rodrigue still had his rice and vegetables to get through, and Felix an extra steak he could probably fit into his stomach fine. The winter day had already gone dark outside hours ago: the only flash of brightness out there came from a streetlamp and the passing car lights.</p><p>“Your friend came by a couple of weeks ago,” Rodrigue said between mouthfuls of rice and fried vegetables. He glanced at Felix instead of his plate. “When you next see him, send him my regards. And a thank you.”</p><p>“My friend?” Felix parroted. “Sylvain hasn’t been anywhere recently.”</p><p>Asides from his usual tomfoolery.</p><p>“Not that friend,” Rodrigue corrected gently. “The new one. Dimitri.”</p><p>Felix nearly dropped his fork at that name. “What?”</p><p>His incredulity must have shown on his face, since the old man’s smile widened. “Yes, Dimitri came by. With an early Seiros Day present, he said. I was rather confused since he only met me once, but he insisted that I accept it.”</p><p>“You’re sure you’re not mistaking someone for Dimitri? Blue-eyed blonds aren’t exactly a rarity around here.” Still, Felix could imagine the scene perfectly: Dimitri, the courteous weirdo, handing a present to a person he barely knew while smiling like a fool.</p><p>“That may be true, but not as many wear an eyepatch, son.” Rodrigue’s tone turned into amusement at Felix’s denial. Felix bristled.</p><p>“Why the hell would Dimitri—”</p><p>“I don’t know. But it was very kind of him regardless.” Rodrigue eyed him. “If you wish to invite him over for the holiday, Felix—”</p><p>“So I can subject him to immense boredom? No thanks.”</p><p>“If he has a family to spend the day with, that’s fine. But he seemed to enjoy himself the last time he was over.” Rodrigue sipped at water between speaking. He put the glass down, and his eyes followed suit, lips falling into a concerned frown. “I somehow got the feeling he is a very lonely person at heart.”</p><p>Argh. Depressed and pathetic he may be, but Rodrigue wasn’t a complete fool when it came to judging people – or, at least, judging their vibes. Felix had gotten the same feeling from Dimitri occasionally. He didn’t like that his father had noticed it too.</p><p>“I’ll ask him if he wants to come, I guess.” Felix shrugged. “Don’t get your hopes up, old man. You might just be stuck with me, as usual.”</p><p>“I wouldn’t mind that either, Felix.” Rodrigue hesitated, but then he smiled again. His voice was careful, words chosen with the same care as steps along the surface of a recently frozen lake. “I may be poor at showing it at times, but you are my son and very dear to my heart.”</p><p>Felix, true to himself and his upbringing, choked on a piece of steak.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“Explain,” Felix hissed into his phone as soon as he had gone into his room and pulled up Dimitri’s contact info. Dimitri picked up after three rings. “Why is my father saying you came here and gave him an early Seiros Day present?”</p><p>“Because… I did?” Dimitri sounded confused. “Should I not have?”</p><p>“It was very nice, my father seemed happy with… whatever you gave him.” Felix hadn’t actually asked what Dimitri gave to the old man. Maybe he should have. “But why did you give him anything at all? It’s not like he’s your dad.”</p><p>Perhaps Felix’s voice had been too harsh; Dimitri lapsed back into uneasy silence. Felix waited. Tapped his socked toes against the carpeted floor. When Dimitri spoke again, his voice was soft but it contained something much harsher underneath too. Grief, years and years of it.</p><p>“My father died when I was… much younger,” he said. “I don’t wish you to have the same regrets as I did. Or for your father to – to not be able to move on from what’s… holding him down.”</p><p>“You’re not a therapist,” Felix said. Thought back to how Dimitri had been all respectful behavior and smiles at the old man when they first met. “One gift won’t fucking heal him, dumbass.”</p><p><em>I feel as though I’ve met your Dimitri before, </em>Rodrigue had said. Felix had dismissed it, along with his own feelings, but now the words returned to the forefront of his mind. <em>Annoying.</em></p><p>Dimitri laughed – a nervous little noise that quieted down soon. “I am aware,” he said. Tired. “I simply… got the feeling he would appreciate what I gave him. He reminds me of my own father, after all.”</p><p>“He’s <em>not</em> your father.”</p><p>“I know, Felix. I’m not trying to steal him away from you, if that is what worries you.” As ridiculous as the words were, Dimitri didn’t laugh as he said them.</p><p>Felix, however, did snort. “As if I cared if you tried.”</p><p>“As you say.”</p><p>“Anyway,” Felix said louder, as if that would shut out Dimitri’s smug, knowing tone. “The old man asked me to ask you to come over if you want. Something about you seemed lonely to him, I guess. I don’t know where he gets that from—”</p><p>“Would you like me to come?” Dimitri asked softly. Without a face to go with the question, Felix couldn’t quite determine what kind of feeling Dimitri’s voice was supposed to reflect. But there <em>was</em> feeling, a lot of it.</p><p>Felix bristled and looked down at his feet. Bit at his lip and clenched his fingers. It wasn’t this difficult the first time, but no one had made it into a big deal then. It hadn’t been a family-focused holiday either.</p><p>Fuck it.</p><p>There would be implications only if Felix allowed there to be. Which he wouldn’t.</p><p>“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out too nasally. “Makes dealing with my old man much easier.”</p><p>And with Dimitri there to distract him, Felix would have less time to mull over how he shouldn’t delight too much in his father’s brighter than usual mood. Perfect plan, Felix told himself. Dimitri was very distracting. It would work out fine.</p><p>When Felix finished the call and got out of his room to let the old man know, he found his father in the living room, boxes of decorations pulled out from wherever he kept them during the rest of the year.</p><p>“You’re decorating this year?” Felix peered into a box and grimaced at the glitter and bright colors. “We don’t have a tree, old man.”</p><p>“<em>We’re</em> decorating this year,” the old man corrected him and looked over his shoulder at Felix. A teasing smile splayed along his mouth. “I remember how you got excited about decorating every year… especially around two weeks before Seiros Day, heh. Your mother and I had no choice but to indulge you.”</p><p>“I was a <em>kid</em>,” Felix protested, flushing all the way up to his ears. “Anyway, my point stands. We don’t have a tree. And Dimitri agreed to come over, so you’d better have enough food for all three of us.”</p><p>“We don’t need a tree to decorate the house. And yes, I just went to the supermarket earlier today.” Rodrigue dug into one of the boxes and tugged at a cord. “Help me with the lights, won’t you?”</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Surprisingly, decorating the living room and kitchen put Felix at ease. The electric candles on the kitchen’s windowsill glowed in different colors without any of the wild flickering actual candles had. Felix wouldn’t trust his father to remember to blow off real candles for the night anyway. From the kitchen and living room ceilings hung a plastic dragon, a model of the Immaculate One, which Seiros was said to transform into during moments of humanity’s greatest need.</p><p>Some called it the Great Beast. Felix had silently agreed with that name.</p><p>As a child, Felix had been terrified of looking at the dragons up on their ceiling back at Fraldarius family home in the middle of forest and moss. Glenn had made fun of him for it, but he had also let Felix climb into his bed when Felix was too scared to sleep by himself but too embarrassed to tell their parents about it.</p><p>Most of the decorations were useless, though, as they didn’t have a fir tree to hang them on. Neither a real nor a plastic one, not that Felix cared to create more ecologically bad decisions for their household anyway. The takeout boxes were enough already.</p><p>Felix walked out of the kitchen, lips parted to give voice a question only to freeze midway when he caught his father holding up one of the decoration boxes and standing indecisively at the door to Glenn’s room. Shoulders hunched and head hung, he made a sorry sight.</p><p>“You’re seriously considering decorating a dead boy’s room,” Felix said, and – all right, maybe it was harsh of him. His father’s shoulders tensed, and so did the hands holding up the half-empty box.</p><p>“Pathetic,” Felix continued, because he wouldn’t be Felix if he didn’t keep saying things he would regret sometime in the future.</p><p>“I believe… your brother would love to be included,” Rodrigue said, tone soft and reasonable, which just agitated Felix. Before he could give voice to further grievances, Rodrigue shifted his hands along the box and continued, “I won’t insist on decorating your room, Felix. It’s your personal space; you may do what you want with it. But Glenn—”</p><p>Rodrigue hesitated, brows and mouth twisting both. He looked ten years older like this, the deep lines under his eyes even more pronounced than usual. “I haven’t decorated in years. I would like to include… him in too. There’s nothing of your mother here but the ring on my finger, so it can’t be helped, but Glenn…”</p><p>“Fine,” Felix cut him off sharply before the light burning in his eyes could turn into anything more serious. “Do what you want.” Pause. “Just finish by the time Dimitri comes. I don’t need you embarrassing me in front of my—my friend.”</p><p>The stutter flew right past his father, but Felix himself heard and hated it.</p><p>The old man only focused on the fact that Dimitri was coming.</p><p>He smiled wider than before at Felix, who only now noted that the ridiculous facial hair his father wore looked a little tidier from before. Not tidy enough to have disappeared, but still.</p><p>“I’m happy to hear that,” Rodrigue said before he disappeared into Glenn’s room with the box between his hands and his little ponytail swishing around. It made him look younger somehow, Felix thought. Rodrigue continued, “I can tell Dimitri is good to you.”</p><p>Felix huffed and went to take out the trash.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Dimitri arrived a little past nine, smiling unsurely, with a bag hanging from his elbow.</p><p>“Are you trying to bribe my father further?” was Felix’s greeting for him. Followed by a scoff and a: “Useless, he’s hopelessly enamored with your presence already.”</p><p>“Oh, not at all,” Dimitri said as he put the bag down and took off his heavy winter jacket, damp from recent snowfall. Some flakes melted into Dimitri’s messy hair, not that Felix was paying attention to his hair or any other physical attributes. Dimitri gently took off his shoes before picking up the bag and smiling at Felix. “This is for you.”</p><p>
  <em>Oh. </em>
</p><p>“It’s not my birthday,” Felix said.</p><p>“I know. I was under the impression Seiros Day is for family time and presents?” Dimitri looked hesitant. “Am I mistaken?”</p><p>“I didn’t get you anything.”</p><p>“I wasn’t expecting you to.” Dimitri smiled and held out the bag to Felix. “Here. Don’t open it before tomorrow, though.”</p><p>“The date doesn’t really matter,” Felix grumbled but took the offering. “You gave my father a present way too early, to begin with. Speaking of which…” Felix sniffed and nodded towards the kitchen. “The old man made some supper for all of us. If you want to have some.”</p><p>Dimitri followed him into the kitchen, his expression brightening again when he saw Rodrigue.</p><p>“Good evening,” Dimitri said, his back bending as if to bow before he caught himself midway and rising back up. Rodrigue, who had been setting the table, looked at him with a slight smile.</p><p>“It’s good to see you again, Dimitri,” he said warmly, and reached his hand out to pat Dimitri’s arm. “You’ve been doing well, I take it? Felix hasn’t said much about you.”</p><p>“I have been well,” Dimitri said back. “You’re looking better, Rodrigue.”</p><p>It was like watching a warm family reunion from an outsider’s perspective, and so Felix cleared his throat. Audibly. Before reaching out to fill up his plate with the quick soup the old man had prepared for Dimitri’s sake. “The food’s not gonna wait for you all night.”</p><p>“You always were the most impatient for food,” Rodrigue mused.</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>Dimitri’s laugh was borderline giggle, and he only shut up when Felix glared at him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Even by Felix’s standards, the meal went well. Felix’s typical grouchiness didn’t damper the mood, and his father’s more lighthearted demeanor certainly helped. Rodrigue asked Dimitri about his major – history, with a specific focus on Faerghus’s early history and the Kingdom era – and Felix about his studies and friends. Dimitri answered more happily than Felix did.</p><p>After supper, Rodrigue showed Felix the music box Dimitri had given him. A rather dull-looking thing, in Felix’s opinion: the paint had worn off a long time ago, and the carvings were nearly unrecognizable.</p><p>But his father held the unremarkable thing like it meant him his life.</p><p>Felix’s chest tightened with feeling he could not explain, and eventually he had to look away. Dimitri said something about how glad he was that Rodrigue liked the gift so much. Rodrigue said something along the lines of “it’s as though an old friend has been returned to me”, and the face Dimitri made at that was heartbreaking.</p><p>Like he was going to cry from relief but couldn’t.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the living room, Rodrigue hesitated and looked at Felix after the three of them had settled down to sit on the couch.</p><p>“Felix, you don’t have to agree if you don’t wish to, especially as we have a guest,” the old man started, stilted and unsure, “but I was thinking we could go through some of our photo albums again. It’s been… a while since I have had the courage to look.”</p><p>On Rodrigue’s lap, his hands tensed, and Felix was struck by how vividly the veins stood out on them. If he squinted, he could almost see blood flowing through them.</p><p>“I know it’s uncomfortable for you,” his father said, “and you don’t have to agree to it.”</p><p>Felix exhaled. Shrugged. Leaned further against the back of the cough. The only concern he had about it was Dimitri’s company, but even then he didn’t really mind. He had told Dimitri too much about himself over text messages and phone calls for past photos to come as a shock to Dimitri. “It’s whatever. I’m not as weak-minded as you seem to think I am. Go ahead if you want to.”</p><p><em>I’m not you</em>. Felix didn’t say it out loud but certainly meant it.</p><p>The only annoying thing was his father’s easy assumption that Dimitri knew about Felix’s gender-related struggles. Annoying, because he was right; annoying, because the old man had always been presumptuous that way.</p><p>Rodrigue looked relieved as he went to retrieve the photo albums he had placed away into the living room’s bookshelves, which were only half books and half something else stuffed in. Old VHS tapes and DVDs, but also Felix and Glenn’s old drawings and essays. Most of those remained at the old house, though: they had taken very little with them when they had moved to Fhirdiad asides from furniture and Glenn’s stuffed toy fox collection.</p><p>Felix shook away the empty nostalgia when Dimitri looked at him curiously.</p><p>“What?” Felix grouched but markedly did not shove Dimitri’s hand away when it patted at his leg.</p><p>“Nothing,” Dimitri said. His touch lingered before he pulled away. “You just seemed sad for a moment.”</p><p>Felix had no response to give, and Rodrigue returned to the couch by the point he tried to open his mouth, which then snapped shut like a mouse trap.</p><p>The photo album in his father’s hands was thick and old, and when Rodrigue flicked it open, Felix’s eyes landed on photos from his parents’ wedding. <em>Oh,</em> he thought like a fool. He hadn’t seen these in a long time. He had never liked looking at photos when he was younger. For the younger Felix, the photos were about a past that didn’t include him or Glenn and were therefore useless.</p><p>Felix sat between his father and Dimitri. It occurred to him that perhaps this wasn’t what the old man had intended – didn’t parents always want to show off baby pictures to their kids’ friends and, eugh, significant others? – and Felix smiled thinly at having thwarted the worst of the mortification that had nearly been tossed his way.</p><p>But that didn’t mean his father didn’t successfully embarrass him anyway. Without even pointing out Felix’s baby photos!</p><p>It only took Rodrigue talking about Felix’s mother and Felix’s face tingled with embarrassed annoyance. He never knew what to do when his father talked about the dead in that wistful tone of his.</p><p>“Some of my friends didn’t think much of her when we first started dating,” Rodrigue said softly, eyeing at one of the wedding photos and smiling weakly, “but she was better than they credited her for. Than anyone credited her for, truly.”</p><p>On the wedding photos, Nadia Fraldarius – whose maiden name evaded Felix – wore a nose ring. Felix cocked an eyebrow at that.</p><p>“Her parents really tried to get her to take it off for the wedding,” Rodrigue said when he noticed Felix’s stare. “They asked me to talk some sense into her, but I, well…” Rodrigue grinned. “I told them she looked quite fetching with it on, to be honest.”</p><p>“Brilliant,” Felix said, completely unimpressed, while Dimitri chuckled at his side.</p><p>“She looked wonderful,” Dimitri said, complete sincerity to match Felix’s deadpan attitude. “I see where Fee—Felix gets it from.”</p><p>Felix nearly nodded along to the sentiment, until Dimitri’s words and their meanings actually registered. His head snapped to Dimitri, who still smiled goofily and peeked past him at the photo album open on the old man’s lap.</p><p>“Where I <em>get it</em> from?” Felix echoed.</p><p>“I—uh—you are quite handsome, if you haven’t noticed, Felix.” Dimitri’s cheeks visibly reddened, and he ducked his head so Felix couldn’t look at him. “Forgive my… forwardness.”</p><p>Rodrigue, the damned fool, chuckled at the two of them. “You two remind me so much of how things used to be, heh—”</p><p>“Old man, don’t you start—”</p><p>“Though I suspect that Dimitri here would be better for you than I ever was for Nadia,” Rodrigue continued despite the warning signs, and Felix was filled to the neck with an urge to choke his father. Rodrigue’s eyes glazed over momentarily as they returned to the wedding photos, a thumb awkwardly brushing over the face of a much younger Rodrigue Fraldarius.</p><p>Wavy hair tucked over his ears and pulled into a short ponytail behind his head, mid-twenties Rodrigue didn’t look horrible. The absence of facial hair truly improved <em>any</em> face, Felix thought.</p><p>The old man flipped away from the wedding photos soon after, and pictures of little Glenn started emerging. Felix was marginally more interested in those, because they depicted a Glenn he had never had the chance to know.</p><p>Not that exploring that was meaningful in any way – Glenn was gone, regardless, his absence sharp and vicious as though hearts had been carved out of his and his father’s chests with a rusty knife.</p><p>His father’s smile tinged with pain even now when he looked at the old photos. “He was always so outgoing… Has Felix told you anything about Glenn, Dimitri?”</p><p>“None that I recall.” Dimitri glanced at Felix and smiled reassuringly. Yet, there was pain in his eye that Felix could not help but notice and drown in. “It’s not any of my business to begin with, after all.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Felix said tightly, looking away from Dimitri and down at the picture his father’s fingers rested on. Glenn must have been no older than three on it, face scrunched up as their father held him in his arms like a baby even if Glenn was no longer one. Felix’s throat constricted. “It really isn’t.”</p><p>He switched seats with Dimitri afterwards. It didn’t matter that Dimitri saw his childhood photographs – ones where he was stuffed in the kind of clothes he would no longer touch even with a stick, no matter how genderless they were supposed to be – and Felix didn’t want to see them himself anyway.</p><p>Not the pics and not the far away nostalgia in his father’s eyes, the depression that was always there.</p><p>Dimitri <em>awww</em>ed and <em>ooh</em>ed at the pictures, of course, but he never turned to make any embarrassing or hurtful remarks about <em>what a cute child </em>Felix had been or asked <em>what happened</em>. The answer to latter was pretty damn obvious anyway, but that had never stopped relatives from his mother’s side from asking it regardless.</p><p>The worst comments were <em>you look just like your brother, Felix, </em>and even worse was that it was true. His father stopped looking him in the eye after Glenn died, and likewise Felix stopped looking at him.</p><p>No one ever said <em>Glenn looked just like his father</em>, even though that was objectively true when you looked at Rodrigue in his youth and Glenn at the oldest he’d ever get.</p><p>Felix was spared so he could live on in his brother’s stead, Felix heard from these people’s undertones. <em>Felix must live like his brother would. Wouldn’t that make Rodrigue happy, too? Poor man lost his wife and eldest child.</em></p><p>These might not be the words they said out loud, but Felix understood well enough. Looking at pictures from old family events reminded him of it. How mother’s oldest brother would ruffle Glenn’s hair so proudly, but then not know what to do with Felix, who back then had been—</p><p>They just reflected their expectations of Glenn onto him because that was the easiest way they could deal with Felix. Not as his own person, but as Glenn’s spare.</p><p>What a fucking joke.</p><p>“—then, Felix ran off from the rest of us and got lost, and we were quite worried about him,” his father’s voice pulled Felix back into the moment, the surprising warmth in it enough to startle Felix just the slightest bit. It wasn’t Glenn father was talking about.</p><p>Felix blinked and leaned over to see what picture Rodrigue was pointing at.</p><p>“We found him near the big cats, of course. Nadia and I were both near tears from relief, but Glenn… he thought it was rather funny Felix had escaped from us to go look at lions and other big cats again. I think it was… a rare species of lynx that he was staring at.” Rodrigue laughed softly at his own retelling of events that Felix had no memories of whatsoever.</p><p>“Huh. I don’t remember any of that.”</p><p>“You were four, Felix. I would be surprised if you did.”</p><p>“Why did you let a four-year-old get out of your sight, anyway—”</p><p>“Glenn was quite a handful at eight, son. Be glad you don’t remember much.”</p><p>Before their bickering could get out of hand, Dimitri’s quiet laughter stilled Felix and Rodrigue both. Dimitri covered his mouth with a hand, but there was nothing to hide his quivering shoulders and the mirth in his half-shut eye.</p><p>“Oh—Oh, I’m sorry,” Dimitri said when he finally caught his breath. No tears ran down his face, but to Felix it looked like Dimitri wanted to cry. “I just—I missed hearing—I haven’t felt so at home in a long time.”</p><p>“Get used to it,” Felix said before his father could so much as open his mouth. “You’ll be dragged here often.”</p><p>“Oh, Felix,” Dimitri said and smiled at him like he had given him the sun after a long and dark winter. “That would make me the happiest man in the world.”</p><p><em>Oh, </em>Felix thought as he looked at that blinding face of happiness, <em>so this is what it feels like to have a heart attack.</em></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next chapter will be up on the 20th! Funny how the holiday chapters ended up lining up perfectly for Christmas.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. o holy night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Seiros Day dawns on Fraldarius household, and Felix unwraps the present Dimitri got him. </p><p>cw for? descriptions of Dimitri's missing eye</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Night passed, and Felix slept awfully. It was all Dimitri’s fault, really, as it was his voice that kept ringing in Felix’s ears and refused to allow him any good sleep. Saying things like <em>that would make me the happiest man in the world</em> – who did he think he was, making Felix feel appreciated?</p><p>Dimitri slept in Glenn’s old room, because neither Felix nor his old man would let him take the couch in the living room.</p><p><em>Back problems at your age would be horrible,</em> the old man had said, to which Felix nodded along with before grumbling <em>it’s not like Glenn will ever use it again, anyway</em>. Dimitri looked at both of them for a long time, his face like a blank canvas, before bowing his head and thanking them in such an exaggerated way that Felix felt embarrassed on his behalf.</p><p>In his room, Felix rolled in his sheets but didn’t get much sleep, not even the odd nostalgic dreams that had plagued him more often recently.</p><p>Morning came in all its winter grey ugliness, and Felix got up, every bit of him heavy and aching. Eyes burning from lack of sleep.</p><p>In the corner beside the door, Dimitri’s present for him waited. Staring at Felix as he changed into new clothes for the day. Felix tried not to think about it too much and left the bag behind when he left to make breakfast for three.</p><p>Somehow, his father had beaten him to it. Felix stared blankly at the sight of his father working at the stove, porridge bubbling in the kettle Felix didn’t see well.</p><p>The sight was as bizarre as it had been the previous day, and Felix wondered when the timeline would correct itself and make his father return to the pit he had been stuck in nearly every time Felix came to visit. Some visits were better, but it was easier to recall the worst ones.</p><p>Rodrigue was still in his pajamas, which hung a little loose on him. He had steadily been losing weight since Glenn’s death, but it seemed to have stagnated somewhat in the past year. Someone at the hospital must have been nagging him about it.</p><p>Felix stood at the threshold for a while just observing his father cooking one of the simplest breakfast foods out there. How his arm moved when he stirred the porridge to not let it burn and stick to the pan’s bottom. His hair pulled into a small but tight ponytail behind his head. For someone that stressed and worried so much on the inside, there should have been a streak of white or grey among the hair already, but Felix couldn’t find any.</p><p>“Good morning, Felix,” his father eventually said, glancing over his shoulder when he put the porridge away to cool. He looked like he hadn’t slept at all, either.</p><p>“Morning,” Felix said. He crossed his arms and shifted weight between his feet.</p><p>Neither of them said anything for an uncomfortably long stretch of time. Felix looked away from his father, but felt his narrow eyes on him, studying him.</p><p>“Happy Seiros Day,” his father said eventually, with the sort of wary voice that someone might take with a wild animal. Or a father might take with the son he had failed in nearly every way.</p><p>Felix wasn’t as mad about it as he should have been. Must have been because anger, like so many other things, were fucking tiring to cling onto even if the person had Felix’s stamina and tendency toward grudges.</p><p>“…Happy Seiros Day,” Felix said.</p><p>His father smiled.</p><p>Felix tried his best to not smile back.</p><p> </p><p>*</p><p> </p><p>When Dimitri didn’t wake and join them, Felix went into Glenn’s room to drag him up to his feet himself. He could handle many things, but time alone with his cheerier than usual father was not one of those. Not without distraction from Dimitri.</p><p>Dimitri was still sleeping when Felix entered the room none too quietly: he stubbed his toe on the threshold and cursed considerably loudly even if it was under his breath. Fucking treacherous architecture. Dimitri didn’t so much as twitch on the bed, where he lay face-down like an abandoned plushie.</p><p>Felix jabbed him straight between his shoulder blades. Dimitri didn’t react, still as a statue. Felix jabbed him again.</p><p>“Wake up, Dimitri,” he said. “Old man made us breakfast. You don’t want to miss out on a rare event like that, do you?”</p><p>Dimitri’s shoulder blades shifted and tensed under Felix’s finger and the thin fabric of a t-shirt. An incoherent noise followed, but Dimitri didn’t raise his head from Glenn’s pillows.</p><p>Felix sighed, but Dimitri’s muffled voice cut him off before he could say anything.</p><p>“Fee…” Dimitri’s head burrowed deeper into the pillows. “M’tired… rest with me?”</p><p>“No,” Felix said. Jabbed at Dimitri harder. “I’m not a slob.”</p><p>He was a mess in his own right, but he did his damn best regardless – which was more than anyone could say about his father or, heck, Sylvain, who was a train wreck in progress.</p><p>“Mm.” Dimitri didn’t sound convinced. Glenn’s old stuffed foxes peeked out from beneath the haphazardly tossed blankets around Dimitri. Orange fluff shone the brightest in the room bathed in the grey light of Guardian Moon. Even Dimitri’s hair looked pallid and faded in comparison.</p><p>“C’mon,” Felix insisted, this time nudging at Dimitri’s back with his entire palm. “You wanted to spend the holiday with us.”</p><p>Dimitri’s back felt like ice even through his shirt, or perhaps a marble statue if had been abandoned in winter storm for one too many hours. Felix tossed the second thought away as soon as it had come. Useless, distracting thoughts like that had no place in his mind.</p><p>The warmth on his cheeks wasn’t as easy to get rid of, even after Dimitri woke fully and turned around to give Felix a weary and aching smile. His hand reached out, landing on Felix’s cheeks with the overconfidence of a person that trusted in Felix’s emotional stability far too much.</p><p>“Felix,” he said, “good morning.”</p><p>It was almost enough to steal Felix’s attention away from the stitches that closed Dimitri’s eyelid, the one that was often hidden under an old and worn eyepatch.</p><p>Almost.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Morning passed by in silence, and Felix – in rare moment of kind thoughtfulness – didn’t comment on the eye and how it definitely hadn’t been cared for in any proper method acceptable to modern medicine. Felix washed the dishes instead and listened half-heartedly to his father and Dimitri’s attempted, but incredibly awkward, conversation.</p><p>By now, Dimitri had put the eyepatch back on.</p><p>The old man asked him about his major, and Dimitri gave clumsy and haphazard descriptions of his history courses. Felix couldn’t help smiling when Dimitri rambled on about the medieval history of Fódlan and Faerghus in particular.</p><p><em>So many farming techniques were developed then</em>, Dimitri gushed, fascinated like a little boy at the sight of his first bike. <em>People who say human innovation died after the classical era are fools.</em></p><p>Felix’s father, who had one too many history books on his shelves to be just a hobby, hummed approvingly along to Dimitri’s impassioned little speech. The sound of it drowned under the running water Felix used on dishwashing.</p><p>The conversation died after Felix finished and returned to the living room, Dimitri’s attention moving to Felix like a magnet. The eyepatch on his face appeared askew and hastily put on.</p><p>“Thank you for washing the dishes,” his father said, smiling up at Felix in a way that was worse than if the man had cursed him. Sincerity always either disarmed Felix or made him puff up like a hedgehog.</p><p>“It’s fine,” Felix said and sat down beside his father. “Sylvain makes me do it all the time as is.” A small lie: Sylvain washed them whenever he needed to, the infamous Gautier dislike of dirt coming into play. Sylvain just rarely ate at home.</p><p>Their conversation picked up from where Rodrigue and Dimitri had left off, now including Felix and his thesis-related struggles. Biology was a tough subject to major in – and Felix regretted his choice every day, not least of all because his father had attended similar courses during his time in med school.</p><p>“If I have to take yet another genetics related class, I’ll combust and take down the whole class with me,” Felix grumbled, and his father patted his arm very sympathetically. <em>Animal Crossing</em> had never been quite the same since Felix had had to study flower breeding and genetics involved.</p><p>Time passed by in relatively relaxed manner, to Felix’s surprise. Dimitri and Rodrigue had no trouble conversing after Felix joined them. The old man had never had trouble speaking to people other than Felix. Dimitri inquired how he had liked the present; Rodrigue said he opened the music box nearly every day and that while it left him with conflicting feelings, he could never stop himself from opening it again.</p><p>Dimitri looked pleased, but his smile strained at the edges when he looked back to Felix. “What about you, Felix?”</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“Did you like the present I got you?”</p><p>Oh. Right. Felix had nearly forgotten about that. The small gift hidden in a plastic bag in the corner of his room. “I haven’t opened it yet.”</p><p>Dimitri’s expression brightened, though his fingers stiffened and twitched where they hovered over his knees. Anxious or impatient. “Good. It may be selfish of me, but I wished to see your reaction when you opened it.”</p><p>If Felix felt embarrassed, it was simply because Dimitri made it difficult to not feel embarrassed on his behalf. “Right now?”</p><p>“Whenever you want.” Dimitri’s face reddened. Colour showed on his pale face easily.</p><p>The trip to his room and back didn’t last longer than a minute – not two, not by a long shot – but it gave Felix enough time to take a breath and calm the fuck down. <em>Stupid fool. </em>It wasn’t the first time Dimitri was being overly friendly.</p><p>Felix returned with the plastic bag and plopped down beside Dimitri, behind whom Felix’s father peeked curiously, an infuriating smile on his face. The smile of a father that was proud of his child for making new friends.</p><p>Eugh. Felix wasn’t twelve.</p><p>Felix ignored his father – and Dimitri’s bright, expectant eye – and dug out the small package the bag contained. The wrapping paper was clumsily draped around the gift. <em>To Felix! </em><em>😊</em> had been written on it with black marker. And even though Felix had seen countless Seiros Days, something about seeing his name written on a gift made him choke up.</p><p>No tears. He wasn’t a wimp.</p><p>Felix tore open the wrapping paper and found himself staring at a small wooden box, painted turquoise green. Again, his name stood out against the lid, either an unnecessary reminder for the gift recipient or a brand name.</p><p>The ketchup brand was the only one Felix knew of.</p><p>“If this is a joke gift, I’m going to slap you,” Felix said without looking in Dimitri’s direction. Dimitri’s tension was obvious beside him. Felix had long since ceased stressing over his friends’ opinions on the gifts he got them – the few times he <em>did</em> get them; Seiros Day was, after all, just a commercialized holiday abusing the notion of family and togetherness – so he had forgotten how it felt to take a risk and give someone something without knowing their exact reaction to it.</p><p>The box lid opened easily, revealing a pair of earrings resting against a velvet-soft cushion.</p><p>Shaped like lightning bolts, the earrings glowed turquoise—no, teal was the closest shade of green, Felix thought as he picked the earrings up into his palm and felt their slight weight. They had been polished recently – their shine wasn’t the same as a new pair’s would be. Felix wanted to scoff at getting secondhand stuff yet again, but it felt almost comforting now that he had spent years without having anyone to pass their old stuff to him.</p><p>“What do you think, Felix?” Dimitri asked, his voice less hopeful than it was tense.</p><p>Felix held up the earrings against the meager light pouring in through the windows. He smiled, a little twitch of one side of his mouth. “They’re not bad to look at.”</p><p>When he turned, Dimitri was staring at him like an eager fool waiting for something to happen. “What? I said they’re not bad, Dimitri.”</p><p>A pause. A little too long to be normal. And then Dimitri’s face broke into a smile, though it did not seem as genuine as the last one. “I’m glad they please you, Felix.”</p><p>Geesh, who talked like that?</p><p>(Dimitri. Who must have been born in another century entirely.)</p><p>“Do you want to… put them on?” Dimitri eyed at his ear. “I wasn’t sure if you had pierced your ears but…”</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, they’re pierced.” Fifteen had been… a year. Felix rolled the earrings around and found the little hook, only to pause again. His father had been oddly silent throughout the entire exchange. It wouldn’t be abnormal any other time, but the man had actually been energetic and talkative through this visit.</p><p>“—Where’s the old man?”</p><p>“He went to prepare coffee,” Dimitri said, nodding in the kitchen’s direction where, indeed, Felix heard footsteps and the fumbling attempts at preparing the coffee machine. When he looked back to the man beside him, Dimitri wore a sheepish, embarrassed smile. “He said something about wanting to give us a moment, I believe.”</p><p>Sigh. If Felix were of just a little more murderous sort –</p><p>“Sheesh. Anyway… thanks.” Felix put the earrings back into the box and jabbed his finger in Dimitri’s direction, accusing and demanding. “But you had better not give me anything for my birthday after this.”</p><p>“I… cannot make such promises.” Dimitri’s expression smoothed into irritating serenity.</p><p><em>Bastard</em>. But a part of Felix was glad.</p><p>To be seen was daunting yet addicting. Felix really ought to do something before he got in way over his head and started to believe Dimitri wouldn’t just up and leave when his personality got rough.</p><p>He was fine by himself.</p><p>Felix had been telling it to himself for years, and now it occurred to him that he might have been lying to himself all along.</p><p>Not that he would admit to such a thing beyond a passing thought.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Back when the gods were still known and revered with gifts other than prayer, Faerghus skies were empty of smog and clouds and stars loomed closer than they ever would in times since then.</p><p>Nighttime sky was one of Dimitri’s – Mitya, to his people, to his loved ones – favourite things in the world. It was well beyond his powers to change, a result of Goddess Sothis’s leisurely work in ages that, even then, had long since vanished from gods’ memories.</p><p>But there were sights even more beautiful than Sothis’s handiwork. Which, he supposed, would not well-received by Seiros, should he say it aloud.</p><p>But a god in love was much a mortal in love. Hopeless in every aspect.</p><p>That was why, when <em>he </em>came up to him, Dimitri’s gaze strayed from the stars and fell to the fairy stomping to his side. He moved in such a brusque manner one might wonder if he were a fairy at all, but Dimitri found that endearing about him.</p><p>“You’re here again,” Fee said, vaguely annoyed. The distant lights from the castle reflected off of his earrings, made of fairy gold and thus glowing in shades of green. Twin lightning bolts, shaped after Fee’s magic. Fee cleared his throat. “Not interested in ‘Saint’ Seiros’s celebrations, are you?”</p><p>“Ah, Fee. I should have known you would find me.”</p><p>“Obviously. That’s still not an answer.” Fee’s long, firm fingers tapped against the hilt of a dagger at his side. A gift from Glenn that Fee carried everywhere with him.</p><p>Dimitri understood. He too carried gifts from his loved ones everywhere. The music box wasn’t on him right then, but usually it was.</p><p>His father’s ghost hovered over him nevertheless, no matter where the music box was.</p><p>“Saint Seiros has other faithful followers to send whatever dues she is owed,” Dimitri said into the cold winter night between them. Wind nipped at his ears, but it was a gentle tickle instead of the sharp bite humans would feel it as. “My duty is to my people, first and foremost.”</p><p>“Who are you pleasing by standing here, then?”</p><p>Dimitri’s smile twitched. “—Myself,” he admitted. “You must admit, Faerghus is beautiful in winter.”</p><p>Fee looked down the mountain slopes, toward the Faerghus proper, unimpressed. “Looks like just another wasteland to me.”</p><p>“You only say that because you grew in your fae forest,” Dimitri teased, smile wide on his lips. His eyes traced one of Fee’s earrings, which glowed in the darkness. “Even then, there is something your home loses in beauty to.”</p><p>Fee looked at him then, gold-speckled eyes sharp on him. Dimitri, unashamedly, loved being watched by them. “What might that be?”</p><p>“You, of course.” Dimitri reached out to rub his fingers against Fee’s earring, but first brushed extra hair behind Fee’s ear. Fee let him, and even in the dark Dimitri was sure his companion’s face had gone red. Dimitri chuckled. “Did you not know? You are the most beautiful—”</p><p>“<em>Quiet</em>,” Fee hissed.</p><p>Always so shy with compliments. Dimitri’s smile remained. “But surely you must—”</p><p>“Do not make me break your pretty face in, Mitya,” Fee said.</p><p>So threatening! Dimitri could not help but laugh. Just as he could not help but lean in and press a kiss on Fee’s nose, which felt very warm under his lips. “Very well. I do like my face well enough to worry about your threat.”</p><p>“Good,” Fee said coolly, but nevertheless he followed when Dimitri leaned back, reaching up to kiss Dimitri’s mouth. Fee sighed. “I can’t say I care for the celebrations either.”</p><p>“Let’s ditch them, then,” Dimitri said, feeling a little reckless and dizzy from Fee’s show of affection.</p><p>And so they did, racing down the mountain until they reached solid soil again and a proper, thick forest, which wasn’t Fee’s but which made the fae’s shoulders relax.</p><p>He always was so tense around the gods’ castle. Not that Dimitri could fault him; it hadn’t felt like a home to him since his father had been killed by the person Dimitri least expected to be capable of cruelty.</p><p>But now, at the foot of the mountain and the edge of the forest, Fee relaxed, the magical runes on his skin glowing gentle gold. <em>Lightning</em>, one such rune said in the fae language, but others Dimitri did not understand.</p><p>He was fine with that.</p><p>Fee turned to him. Dimitri held out his hand.</p><p>“I can walk,” Fee said, difficult as he always was. Dimitri loved that about him. He wouldn’t change it for anything.</p><p>“Dance with me?” Dimitri asked, keeping his hand where it hung in the air. The night was cold, freezingly so, but he didn’t feel any of it. The anticipation for Fee’s answer warmed him further.</p><p>Snow began to fall as Fee kept him waiting, staring at him like he was a madman.</p><p>It was okay. The gods and goddesses at the castle looked him in much worse ways – pitying yet unwilling to touch upon his grief and agony that being alive without his family brought him. Fee didn’t do anything like that when he scolded Dimitri for his sentimentality.</p><p>Now, Fee laughed. “Geesh, of course the god of winter thinks it’s a fine time to dance when a snowstorm is coming.”</p><p>“Do you disagree with me?”</p><p>It was barely visible under moonlight, but Dimitri could just feel Fee roll his eyes. “The authority’s getting to your head, Mitya.”</p><p>“That’s not an answer,” Dimitri pointed out, laughing.</p><p>“—Fine,” Fee said, but his reluctance was betrayed by how eagerly he stepped into Dimitri’s personal space, the way he guided Dimitri’s hands on the right places.</p><p>Fee was right. Nature was right at the cusp of a snowstorm: winds were picking up as the snow came down in big, chubby flakes while the forest animals hid away into whatever holes they could find.</p><p>Dimitri dancing certainly would not help it. If anything, it could make the storm worse. Natura was at the mercy of deities’ and their emotions – and right now, what Dimitri felt was adoration bursting through his veins like the fireworks humans had just recently come up with somewhere south of Fódlan. It would take centuries before they made it to Fódlan and Faerghus.</p><p>Later this memory would stand out to him, when all was already lost.</p><p>The way Fee held onto him, held <em>him</em>, through the dance and the storm, a steady support when Dimitri’s step faltered. The shine of his golden eyes, the glow of his runes and wings.</p><p>The taste of his love on his lips.</p><p>And Dimitri would cry, knowing he could not have any of it again – not for an impossibly long time. </p><p>But for now, as they danced through the storm, there was only happiness on the night of the Seiros Day.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Next update will be mid-January-ish! December has been ruthless with projects. Happy holidays!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. the more i speak, the less sure i am</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Yuri. Sylvain. The baggage between them. If only Sylvain was better at unpacking it.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>chapter warnings: implied child abuse (on vague terms)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Miklan looked as godawful as he did in the last memory Sylvain had of him. Red hair like his stuck around a sturdier, squarer face than Sylvain’s; eyes hard as diamonds looked straight forward, the rest of his face twisted into a grimace Sylvain knew all too well. When police officers walked him into the courtroom, he was dressed up in meager clothes, completely unlike those he used to wear when he still lived with the rest of the Gautiers. Sylvain drank in the sight of him the same way he poured alcohol down his throat: masochistically, and knowing it was no good for him. Alcohol, though, was a good distraction whereas Miklan was the very thing Sylvain needed distraction <em>from—</em>not that he could ignore his brother ever.</p><p>It had always been a matter of survival, surveying Miklan’s moods and his current locations, up until Miklan got caught stealing from their old man.</p><p>Kinda comedic, Sylvain thought as his eyes followed Miklan to the defendant’s bench, that Miklan should have gotten away with everything but probably the smallest crime he ever committed.</p><p>Miklan didn’t turn to look in his direction.</p><p>Maybe that was for the best, Sylvain figured as he adjusted the collar of his shirt under the suit jacket. He was among the crowd in the front rows, put there like a chess piece by his and Miklan’s sperm donator. It was all right to call him that, yeah? The man cared as little for Miklan as one, at least. Not that Sylvain felt much love from him either in being called to watch his brother’s trial.</p><p>The judge presiding over the case arrived last, looking displeased to be there at all and more than a little sleep-deprived. Sylvain sent her his silent condolences.</p><p>The prosecutor and the defense attorney were already there. The defense attorney—Sylvain wondered how Miklan afforded one; his bank accounts had been frozen a while back—stood with her back straight and arms crossed over her chest. She was rather attractive, even in her courtroom suit and with her ponytail pinned to the back of her head, but it was a fierce type of attractiveness that, Sylvain thought, you didn’t see every day.</p><p>Goddess, he was derailing and the trial hadn’t even started yet.</p><p>Across the aisle were the benches for reporters with their smartphones and other devices for jotting down notes. Sylvain glanced in that direction once or twice, tried to see if anyone he was familiar with was there. He <em>had</em> been interviewed once or twice… and some other times, mostly Miklan-related. But no, he didn’t catch anyone he knew among the reporters that all looked at the attorneys and the defendant with way too much eagerness.</p><p>Didn’t they know trials were supremely boring? Sylvain had sat through them before and fallen asleep in the first hour nearly every time.</p><p>Sylvain fixed his collar again, fiddled with the tie choking him. It was hot in the room, and not in the way Sylvain preferred situations to be. The people he was squeezed between paid him no attention. Relatives, though Sylvain didn’t know how. Could be his dad’s siblings for all he knew—none of them had ever shown the courtesy of attending family celebrations with Sylvain and the rest of the “main” Gautier family.</p><p>…Hah, as If he cared.</p><p>The judge slammed the hammer down, breaking apart Sylvain’s useless thoughts and the deep fear that had settled into his chest.</p><p>“The court will now commence.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>The thing about Antoine Ulysse Gautier was—on the outside, he was truly an impressive person from an impressive family, a legacy that Sylvain didn’t care about but which he had to admit existed. It was all the newspapers talked when it came to the “genius prosecutor from a troubled family”, after all.</p><p>Prosecutor Antoine U. Gautier wore a frighteningly calm face through the case summary and even the defense’s first response to the accusations presented. That calm was a façade for indifference, just as it was back home. He was why Sylvain would never become a lawyer—or, at least, not a prosecutor. Not that Sylvain attended law school at the moment, anyway.</p><p>The defense attorney—Sylvain hadn’t caught her name—appeared deeply annoyed by the prosecutor’s calm. Perhaps she saw through his shit. Sylvain had met some that did, and each had earned his delighted respect. <em>Don’t buy into his strong-man persona, </em>he begged the attorney, though he didn’t know why.</p><p>Miklan’s fate shouldn’t matter to him so much.</p><p>Miklan sat still on the defendant’s bench—desk, really—and from behind Sylvain could tell the proceedings bored his brother to death. It was the one thing they had in common: long-winded stuff killed them both with boredom, which truly was as effective as poison or brainwashing in most cases. A person bored enough could do quite a lot.</p><p>Like bully their little brother.</p><p>Sylvain suppressed a shiver and watched on, but there was nothing he could do about the goosebumps that rose along his flesh beneath his several layers of clothing.</p><p>The judge presiding over the case was an elderly woman. Judges in Faerghus leaned towards that age group—call it conservatism, traditionalism, or whatever. Sylvain squinted and tried to deduce which side on the political landscape she fell into. Hard to tell, though: all of these judges wore similar attires for court sessions, and no one held their political leanings on their faces. With some exceptions—Sylvain’s gaze drew back to his father, who was obviously fighting back a derisive sneer at the defense.</p><p>Sylvain’s hands clenched on his lap, inched towards the pocket he had shoved his phone in, but a miffed look from the red-haired lady on his right made him pause. Yep, definitely a relative. No one else could make Sylvain feel quite so chastised and foolish.</p><p>The arguments between the prosecution and the defense were made coolly, with the calm of a slow snowfall. The judge watched on wearily, as though the whole process was utterly bothersome to her.</p><p>The case proceeded as such: prosecution went through the events leading up to the theft of 200k worth of G, to which the defense said nothing. Sylvain thought he heard Miklan snort over their father’s even monotone.</p><p>No witnesses were called in yet, not even Miklan himself.</p><p>When the break time came, Sylvain scrambled out of the courtroom among the first people, his face pale and his stomach tight with a nauseating knot. Even he had overestimated how long he could stand being in the same room as Miklan—until the conflicting feelings would wage war and agitate him.</p><p>He dragged himself to the bathroom, locked himself into a stall, and relieved himself, breathing slowly through his mouth so as to not inhale the stench that lingered in the painfully public space. Weird, to be doing such ordinary human things. He had done this for years now, though, since his recollections slowly came to him after Glenn died.</p><p>Sylvain flushed the toilet and exited to wash his hands, avoiding eye contact with the men at the urinals. Eugh. He held his breath the best he could until he was done scrubbing his hands and walking out of the room. Only after he got out did he dare to release his breath and smell the strictly caffeine-like aroma hanging in the air.</p><p>Sylvain sighed in relief, but his breath caught against when a glimpse of violet showed through the mass of people around the bathrooms.</p><p>Sylvain had—in the past, way too distant for a single human life—woken up beside a head with that exact shade of hair. His heart lurched. <em>Fuck. </em>He wasn’t ready for this, now.</p><p>His body, as always, acted against his better judgment, but at least it wasn’t his mouth this time. He lunged into the crowd, spouting apologies left and right to agitated people, and reached down for Yuri’s shoulder.</p><p>Only for Yuri to turn around and slip out of his touch before it could even happen.</p><p>“Bad, bad fox,” he said quietly but audibly over the mutters around them, eyebrows high and expressive as they’d always been. “It’s not yet the end of the play.”</p><p>“What if I’m sick of the play?” Sylvain said, smiling. The expression hurt on his face, slanted into something wrong. “No one likes sticking around for the bad ones, yeah?”</p><p>“It’s your brother’s, isn’t it?” Yuri tilted his head, eyes sharp and narrow, pricking at Sylvain’s skin like a rose’s thorns. “Not interested in how his play plays out?”</p><p>Bull’s eye. Sylvain’s smile widened to hide the hurt. “Assholes all have two endings: either they succeed and are miserable or fail and are still miserable, just in a different way. It’s not all that interesting to watch.”</p><p>“A certain playwright would grieve your words, you know.” Yuri’s mouth twitched, as if working up a smile but not quite getting there. Sylvain took in the rest of his appearance: informal wear, with slacks and a hoodie that made Yuri stand out among all the people in suits and skirts. No handcuffs, Sylvain noted, so he definitely wasn’t on trial—though who knew, sometimes the defendants were freed from handcuffs for the trial session, and Yuri would be sneaky enough to get away from bailiffs and cops alike.</p><p>Yuri’s lips spread into a knife-sharp smile for real, now. “Liking what you see?”</p><p>“Don’t I always?” Sylvain asked and laughed.</p><p>“I can name a few times you didn’t,” Yuri said flippantly, but there was nothing flippant about the way his eyes hardened and his jaw clenched. It was borderline hostile, the way Yuri looked at him, and again Sylvain felt a thick lump in his throat.</p><p>“Yeah, well,” Sylvain said, swallowing a couple times to get his voice right, “I’m not saying I wasn’t an asshole.”</p><p>People brushed past them, some grumbling and making faces at “kids” who “stood in the middle of the hallway”. Once you got past a certain age, you apparently lost what little patience you had previously, Sylvain observed idly. It was the same with his father—no time for nonsense.</p><p>But Yuri… <em>this</em> wasn’t nonsense. Not by a long shot.</p><p>If only Sylvain knew what the fuck to do about it.</p><p>“Self-awareness? Never thought I’d see the day for you, fox.”</p><p>“You know what they say,” Sylvain said and winked, “the sun shines out of a donkey’s ass sometimes?”</p><p>He ignored the cutting looks he got from people around. He got them plenty enough, being a business major.</p><p>Yuri bit at his lips, but a choked snort emerged nevertheless. The corners of his eyes crinkled the way Sylvain really, really liked. A true eye-crinkling smile was a rarity on Yuri.</p><p>Hell, Sylvain had forgotten how much he liked seeing Yuri trying to keep himself from smiling at whatever nonsense his mouth uttered.</p><p>“That doesn’t even make any sense.”</p><p>“Proverbs don’t have to, do they?” Sylvain smiled. “’An apple a day keeps the doctor away’? Sure, if you chuck it at them.”</p><p>“Well-proven tactic, for certain,” Yuri said, lips curling smugly. “Rotten ones are the best for it.”</p><p>They went to fetch coffee together, Yuri seemingly tolerating Sylvain while he babbled on—about anything to ease the tension. Sylvain took his coffee black to spite himself, but then so did Yuri.</p><p>“I thought you liked it sweeter,” Sylvain commented idly, glancing up toward the clock on the wall. The trial wouldn’t continue for a few more minutes yet.</p><p>“Did you?” Yuri asked mildly as he swung the plastic spoon around in the dark liquid. “Shows what you know, really.”</p><p>Ah, Yuri. Ever so antagonistic. It wasn’t so bad in the past—or maybe Sylvain had just ignored Yuri’s thorns back then, just like... most other things. A guilty feeling twisted his stomach.</p><p>“I guess I was distracted by your—”</p><p>“Say ‘your beauty’ and I <em>will </em>pour this coffee on your crotch,” Yuri said.</p><p>“Oof, Yuri. I was going to compliment your eyelashes.” Yuri’s eyelashes fluttered, as if in reaction. The eyeliner made his eyes even more cat-like than usual, and Sylvain found he liked the look on him. Yuri had a pretty face in general, narrow and framed with his violet hair. “And your eyeliner. It’s stunning.”</p><p>Yuri rolled his eyes, but there was something pleased about the expression flickering along his face. “Close enough to beauty, if you ask me.” A pause. A grin rose to tease Yuri’s mouth. “Thanks, though. I do have good taste in some aspects of my life, if not others.”</p><p>“Ouch. I know a jab when I hear one.”</p><p>“Good. You’re not as much of a half-wit as everyone says you are, then.”</p><p>It was an invitation for Sylvain to huff and exclaim something about the unfairness of everyone’s assessment of him. He didn’t take it this time.</p><p>Sylvain should really stop indulging himself like this, when there were questions to be asked and apologies to be presented. But today was a lot already and—he figured he ought to trust his gut feeling—if he went in that direction, he would get more than he bargained for.</p><p>Emotions, for most part; those stabby little things that he had never been too good with. History, even less so. In studying it, he excelled, but with his own personal history? Nope.</p><p>Sylvain nursed the paper cup between his hands, not looking at the clock. Would skipping out on his brother’s trial really be so bad?</p><p>(Yeah.)</p><p>“Yuri,” he said, because he couldn’t stop himself in the end, “what are you doing here?”</p><p>“Drinking a damn good cup of coffee.” Yuri blew on the drink’s surface, taking the cup in another hand. He peered at Sylvain, challenging him to argue his words.</p><p>Sylvain slurped on his, wincing at the excessive bitterness. “It’s only decent at best.”</p><p>“Weak,” Yuri said and snorted before sobering up and throwing a furtive glance around them. Not many people to overhear them, and so he went on, “I have a friend in trial too, you know. The fool got himself in a big mess this time, and I don’t really know what to do about it yet.”</p><p>“You have… friends?”</p><p>“Wow, Sylvain. Not all of us have emotional walls the size of Oghma. Of course I have friends.”</p><p>“Don’t remember meeting ‘em, is all I’m saying.”</p><p>Yuri pursed his lips, considering, before tilting his head as if acquiescing to Sylvain’s silent plea. “He’s a human. You wouldn’t have met him.”</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Yuri said, smiling, but his voice had an edge to it. “Isn’t it time for you to head back too, big guy? Your pa’s time to shine.”</p><p>Sylvain grimaced, took a look at the clock, and nodded before dumping the rest of the coffee down his throat in one go. Wasn’t nearly as fun as it was with alcohol, but hey, beggars couldn’t be choosers, et cetera.</p><p>“Don’t call my dad that ever again, though,” Sylvain said lightly as he tossed the paper cup into a trash can. “Makes me wanna throw up a little.”</p><p>“It’s not like I called him dadd—”</p><p>“I am <em>not </em>listening,” Sylvain cut in and made a show of turning on his heels and rushing out of the room. Yuri’s amused laughter followed him out, and <em>oh</em> how terrible Sylvain felt for the warmth it spread within him.</p><p>Tales ever spoke of one true love—one true love <em>only</em>—so imagine his dilemma with two of such things, and the guilt that came with. Sylvain bit down on his lip as he thought of Glenn, of the fair wings and the displeased frown that marred his face when Sylvain spoke ill of himself.</p><p>When he got back into the courtroom, his hands were shaking and so he stuffed them deep into his pant pockets and sat down, exhaling heavily. Miklan was back already from the defendant’s lobby, still cuffed, his head still drooping backwards and eyes staring dully up at the ceiling.</p><p>The doors to the courtroom slapped shut the moment Sylvain sat down.</p><p>“The court now recommences,” the judge announced in her age-firmed voice and slammed the hammer down.</p><p>On the prosecution’s side, Sylvain’s father smiled thinly through thick red beard.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>In a life before his current one—before he had decided to forget it all and restart his life in his mother-to-be’s womb—he woke up in a shack of a house in Arianrhod’s red-light district. Back then it wasn’t called that, of course. People had way cruder names for the area: slums, flea district, sinners’ hole, and a few other colorful expressions that Sylvain found almost amusing. Human creativity at its finest; none of his kind would ever come up with those kinds of things.</p><p>It was late in the day when he woke, not that time could be perceived from the grayness outside the small, cracked windows. A chill crept in, a sign of the oncoming winter. Sylvain grumbled and turned his back on the window, burrowing deeper into the knitted blanket tossed over him.</p><p>Mitya’s season was coming up. Sylvain didn’t like thinking of him—too much guilt and grief was no good for anyone. But now that he was awake and the cold was around him, it was hard not to.</p><p>Luckily, Sylvain had other things to focus on. Such as the lack of a warm body beside him. With a sigh, Sylvain opened his eyes and leaned up on his elbows to get a better look around the tiny room that was, really, an entire home. Only one of its inhabitants was present, though, sitting before a vanity, several items spread out before him that Sylvain couldn’t quite see.</p><p>“Yuri,” he called out, forcing out a grin even through the hollow ache that waking up left in him. “It’s warmer here beside me, wouldn’t you say?”</p><p>Yuri didn’t turn to look at him, didn’t even twitch at the breach of silence. Sylvain’s eyes traced his shoulders and back, both of which were already hidden beneath Yuri’s finest tunic. A gift from someone, Sylvain assumed, because nothing in Yuri’s life suggested he had the coin for fine, silver-lined clothing such as that tunic.</p><p>“You mumble in your sleep,” was what Yuri said. “You were busy talking my ear off.  No warmth is worth that.”</p><p>“Aww, Yuri. Don’t be like that. It’s a chilly morning—”</p><p>“Afternoon.”</p><p>“—a chilly day, and you and I need our blood circulation working,” Sylvain finished, grinning up at Yuri’s back, which Sylvain knew to be as smooth as marble. Under the fabric, Yuri’s skin must have been bruised and clawed—a result from last night.</p><p>The shadows of his dream withered away, as did the thoughts of Mitya.</p><p>“You are not subtle in the least, you know,” Yuri said lightly, glancing over his shoulder for the first time, and now Sylvain saw the purple make-up Yuri had been applying on his eyelids. Despite the light tone he had adapted, Yuri’s lips were pursed and brows furrowed unhappily for reasons beyond Sylvain’s grasp. “Always just the one thing on your mind.”</p><p>“You know me,” Sylvain said, grinning still despite the odd change in the mood between them. “It’s best to be direct, lest you wish to invite misunderstandings, or something like that.”</p><p>“Yes, I believe that method has worked for you well in the past,” Yuri said, turning back to face the vanity. Sylvain saw him grab a brush and another flat container. Sylvain couldn’t tell what it was, but he saw from Yuri’s movements that he applied it on his lips. Yuri huffed, the sound muffled. “I have no time to entertain you today. Some of us have work to do.”</p><p>“Thieving around?”</p><p>“Mm, wouldn’t <em>you</em> like to know.” Yuri’s voice warmed into amusement, then, and Sylvain’s chest prickled with guilt as he too felt warm and contented. That wasn’t supposed to happen. He wasn’t meant to—feel things such as this anymore.</p><p>Mitya was out there—maybe not just yet, but he soon would be—all miserable over the loss of a love, the pinnacle of grieving lovers everywhere. What was Sylvain doing? Very much none of that. He couldn’t be that, couldn’t <em>do</em> that.</p><p>“I could come with you,” Sylvain said, to rid himself of the irritating thoughts. The suggestion was light, almost flippant. “As my other form, if nothing else.”</p><p>“So that the farmers at the market get enraged and attempt to skin a rare city fox?” Yuri snorted. “You’re not very well-liked as yourself or as a fox, you should be aware.”</p><p>“Oh, I am aware. I would risk being chased for you, though.” Even Sylvain didn’t know if he was honest or not here. He shifted on his elbows, until he finally just plopped back down on the makeshift bed made of holey blankets and sheets.</p><p>He felt Yuri rolling his eyes from his snippy response: “Peculiar hobby you got there.”</p><p>The atmosphere between them stayed heavy as Yuri prepared himself for “business”, whatever that might be. Sylvain knew well what Yuri had to do to provide for his mother and himself, but this wasn’t related to that—he didn’t think it was, in any case.</p><p>Eventually, Yuri stood up from the vanity and stretched, not unlike the stray cats Sylvain saw around Arianrhod streets. The sleeves of Yuri’s silver-lined tunic fell, revealing a pair of bony arms. Hunger had been Yuri’s constant companion growing up, and it showed.</p><p>“You sure you don’t want me to come with?” Sylvain asked once more. He reached for his own clothes, strewn about the small living space, but did not abandon the blankets. The cold seeped into his skin, and he contemplated switch back into his fox form. All the trouble aside, he liked running in the city in his animal form. Sometimes he couldn’t tell which one was supposed to be his true one.</p><p>A common ailment for sprites, he heard; the animal-human forms and their relationships got tangled.</p><p>“Nah,” Yuri said, adjusting the belt around his waist. He waved his hand. “Stay as long as you like, I guess. I won’t be back before evening.”</p><p>“I can wait for you?” Sylvain’s lips spread into a wider grin.</p><p>“Not this time, fox,” Yuri said as he pulled on a coat over his tunic and glanced over his shoulder, eyes hard. “Come back when you’ve worked Glenn out of your system. Until then—stay away.”</p><p>Yuri exited the room before Sylvain could speak through his shock, booted steps echoing for a few moments longer in his wake.</p><p>
  <em>Shit. </em>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>By the end of the trial, Sylvain’s father had gotten exactly what he desired: a public humiliation of his oldest child, and a hefty sentence on top of that.</p><p>Ten years for a measly theft, no matter the sum of money involved, felt just absurd to Sylvain, but that was what the lady with the hammer judged. And who was Sylvain to disagree with a professional? No matter how bitter the taste in his mouth.</p><p>If it had been a trial of abuse and assault, Miklan would have gotten off with half that time. If it had been about rape, Miklan might not even have sat a single day in prison. Sylvain’s lips curled in disdain at the unfairness of the justice system. He hadn’t pursued law partly to spite his father, partly because the system was too rotten to be fixed from the inside.</p><p>Not that majoring in business was any less rotten, Sylvain thought as he got up and headed out of the courtroom without once looking in Miklan’s direction this time. He took out his phone and turned it back on amid the crowd of people in suits and dresses just as proper for a Sunday mass as for a trial.</p><p>New messages from Dimitri, who had shrugged off the pet name <em>Mitya</em> the way people shrugged off coats. Sylvain bit at his lower lip thoughtfully, wondering if he could deal with Dimitri right then with his fidgety fingers and irritated mind.</p><p>…Nah, not right now. Sylvain shoved the phone right back into his pocket. When he lifted his eyes, he caught a glimpse of violet through the gap between shoulders. Sylvain hurried his steps before he could stop himself.</p><p>When he got a little closer, he recognized Yuri. The taller and older man beside him, not so much, but Sylvain more than heard him. An officer walked beside them, shoulders squared in apparent annoyance, but both Yuri and his companion ignored them.</p><p>Sylvain caught Yuri’s voice too, though it was muffled under the heavy footsteps. “Geesh, Balthus. I would have bailed you out but that would just be a waste of money when you’d end up arrested at a casino again.”</p><p>“You have too little trust in me, Yuri!”</p><p>“Do I, now?” The eye roll was so very audible in Yuri’s tone.</p><p>“Most definitely. I know my mistakes. I won’t go to a casino—”</p><p>“How comforting. I’m sensing a ‘but’ here, though.”</p><p>“—in Fhirdiad. I’ve heard they got better ones in Adrestia, anyhow.”</p><p>“Ah, yes. The strictest morality police country’s casinos are sure to keep you behaving.” Sylvain smiled at the heavy sarcasm both Yuri’s voice and posture conveyed. He wanted so bad to reach out and call for his name, but—</p><p>Yuri glanced over his shoulder, his smile fading when he caught Sylvain’s stare. He shook his head and tossed his hand in a <em>shoo-shoo</em> gesture.</p><p>Well, never let it be said that Sylvain wasn’t good at taking the hint: he fell back just as “Balthus” turned to Yuri and questioned him about the sour look on his face.</p><p>“It’s nothing, Balthus,” Yuri said, audibly enough for Sylvain to still catch it. “Thought I saw someone that used to matter—was just my imagination.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Sorry for the late-ish update! I have been working on this incredibly huge fic project feat. Fraldarius family, and that has taken my attention... I will hopefully be done with it by the start of February, and after that regular updates should recommence. I can't give a date for the next update right now, though. </p><p>Thanks for being so patient with my messiness with this.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>As said, the next time this will be updated is July 5th! I probably shouldn't be posting this right now, but whatever, I have had this AU stuck in my head since October. </p><p>And I missed posting fraldarddyd (the young version). </p><p>Thanks for reading!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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